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Why, any one might have known that Stella was a Comerford by that colour; not the child of some dark Frenchman. "You stand up to me better than your father ever did," said Mrs. Comerford in white and gasping fury. Had she no pity, Mary O'Gara asked herself; and remembered that Grace Comerford's anger was sheer madness while it lasted. She had always known it.
Did she think Terence Comerford's mother could have heard anything in that far away time? "I shall not bring Mrs. Comerford," she said. "Stella is much with me at Castle Talbot." Again she wondered why she had said "Stella." It would have been "Miss Stella" to another woman of Mrs. Wade's class. "Might I be making you a cup of tea, Lady O'Gara?" Mrs. Wade asked with a curiously brightening face.
Her head as she moved it about in the lamplight she had bird-like gestures showed a sheen like a pheasant's breast. Watching her miserably Sir Shawn O'Gara said to himself that Terence Comerford's red hair had come out as golden bronze on his daughter's pretty head. He had a girl at either hand, as Lady O'Gara had the two male visitors.
Do you think, Mary, that if we Westerners get to Heaven we will want a wet day now and again?" So the old resentment had gone. How strange it was after all the grief and estrangement to have Aunt Grace talking like this. It encouraged Lady O'Gara, sitting on the floor at Mrs. Comerford's feet, to pat the foot from which she had drawn off the shoe, with a tender furtive caress.
Shawn was often unreasonable in these latter days. Indeed he had not been the easiest of men to live with since Terence Comerford's tragic death. But when he was like this his wife thought that all was worth while. A few days passed by and Mrs. Wade had not returned. Mrs. Comerford had written an icy message to Mary O'Gara. "When Stella comes to her right mind this house is open to her.
Comerford had liked the blinds drawn, all the trifling things which mean so much to certain orderly minds. She was in the bedroom which had been Mrs. Comerford's, was to be hers again. The room which had been Mary Creagh's was prepared for Stella. The pink curtains which she remembered as faded had been laid away and new pink curtains hung up. The old ones were riddled with holes.
When the door closed behind her Mrs. Comerford turned to Terry. "Good-bye," she said. "The future will be yours. You are like your mother, and she never had any worldly wisdom. I love you for it, but now you had better go." So Terry and his mother went away, passing in the dark road Mrs. Comerford's carriage with its bright lights and champing and impatient horses.
"I would not recall it," Lady O'Gara went on in her gentle voice, "only that Sir Felix tells me some man has been saying that Sir Shawn flogged Mr. Comerford's horse, using words as he did so which proved that he knew the horse would not take the whip and that he had it in his mind to kill Mr. Comerford." "Who was the man said the likes of that?" asked Patsy, his eyes suddenly red.
She was trying to keep down the thought, the question, that would return no matter how she strove to push it away had she been told all the truth about Terence Comerford's death? There had always been things that puzzled her, things Shawn had said under the stress of emotion, and when he talked in sleep. There had been a night when he had cried out: "My God, he should not have laughed.
Comerford's bitter anger because her son had been supplanted by his friend, even while he was yet in the world; but no disclaimer came. "Yes, I was wrong. I see it now. I ought to have come back long ago and said I was wrong. I could not bring myself to do it, and there were other reasons.
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