some time in the night when lady o'gara had nodded in the chair beside her husband's bed, she came awake sharply to the knowledge that he had called her name.
"mary! mary!"
she could not have dozed for long, since the fire which she had made up was burning brightly.
"yes, shawn, i am here," she answered.
"move your chair so that i may see your face. i want to talk to you."
his voice was quite strong. there was something in the sound of it that spoke of recovering strength.
"i've been lying awake some little time," he said. "i didn't like to wake you, you poor sweet woman. i liked to hear your breathing so softly there close to me—as you have been all these years."
"you are better, shawn, wonderfully better," she said, leaning down to see his face, for firelight and the shaded lamp did not much assist her short-sighted eyes.
"i am free of pain," he answered. "i don't know when it may return.
give me something to keep me going while i talk."
she gave him a few spoonfuls of a strong meat extract mixed with brandy, supporting his head on her arm while he took the nourishment.
"how young you look, mary," he said, when she had laid down his head again on the pillow. "sit there, just where you are. what a burthen i have been to you all these years, holding me up from the abyss. and yet your eyes and your skin are like a child's. i suppose it is prayer and quiet and honest thoughts."
"you really feel able to talk, shawn?" she asked anxiously.
"i feel as strong as a horse at this moment. that stuff is potent. but i had better talk while i am able. there is much i want to tell you, mary, and there may be no great time."
her eyes looked at him in dumb protest, but she said not a word.
"to go back to the beginning, mary. i have not told you all the truth about myself and terence. it was not the loss of my friend that darkened my life. that would have been unnatural when i had you beside me. it was—mary—it was i who sent terence comerford to his death."
"you, shawn! you are dreaming! there was more than the love of brothers between you!"
"my mind is perfectly clear. you won't turn away from me when i tell you? my need of you is bitter."
she dropped on her knees by the bed and laid her face against his hand.
she did not want him to see her eyes while he told his story.
"nothing could make me turn away from you," she answered. "nothing, nothing. we are everything to each other."
"you are everything to me. but you have terry. i am fond of terry, but i have only need of you. i will tell you what happened the night terence was killed. i had been praying and pleading with him to right bridyeen, for i knew that there was a baby coming. never had i so pleaded with any one. i remember that i sweated for sheer anguish, although the night was cold. i don't know what possessed terence, unless it was the whisky. he told me to go and marry you and leave his affairs alone. and then he laughed. a laugh can be the most terrible and intolerable thing in the world. it maddened me. it was not only poor bride; but there was you. i thought he would leave bride and her baby and go back to you. i believed you loved him. i begged and prayed him not to laugh, and he but laughed the louder. he said hateful things; but it was not what he said; it was the way he laughed. it mocked as a devil might have mocked, or i thought it did. it drove me mad. i knew spitfire would not take the whip and that terence was in no state to control her. i leant out and i lashed her with all my strength. i can remember shouting something while i did it. then spitfire was off, clattering down the road—and suddenly the madness died in me. i would have given my life for his, but i had killed him. i had killed myself. i have never since been the man i was when terence and i were closer than brothers."
he ended with a sob.
"you can't forgive me, mary?" he asked, in a terrified whisper, as she did not speak. "for god's sake say something."
she got up and put her arms about his head. whatever grief or horror there was in her face he should not see it. she laid her face against his, embracing him closely and softly.
"the only thing i find it hard to forgive," she whispered, "is your not telling me. it would not have been so bad if you had told me, shawn. i could have helped you to bear it. i could have carried at least half your burden."
"you understand, mary," he asked in a wondering voice, "that when i struck spitfire, i meant to kill terence."
"it was madness," she said. "i would almost say it was justifiable madness. no one could believe it was deliberate."
"a jury might have brought it in manslaughter," he said. "only for you and terence i would have tested it long ago. you cannot imagine what a weight i have carried. even telling it has eased me as though a stone had been rolled from off my heart."
"you should have shared it," she said. "that is all i have to forgive—that you carried it alone all those years."
"oh, incomparable woman!" he said. "indeed i have felt the wrong i did you in marrying you, in chaining your brightness and sweetness to a doomed man like me."
"you have made me perfectly happy," she said. "i would not have changed my lot for anything else in the world. why do you talk of doom? it is going to be happiness for both of us now that you have spoken at last."
"i have made you happy?" he asked wonderingly. "why, if i have, it is not so bad after all."
"did patsy know?" she asked on a sudden thought.
"patsy knew, though he has tried to keep the fact of his knowledge from me. he must have heard what i said. one other knew and has blackmailed me ever since. no matter how much money i gave him he came back again. i was so weary of it and so weary of the burthen i was carrying that the last time i refused him. he went away cursing and swearing that he would have me brought to justice. i felt i didn't care. i told him to do his worst. he is the husband of that poor thing you sheltered at the south lodge, one of the many your goodness has comforted. a bad fellow through and through."
"he will not harm us, shawn. he is dead. he was found with a broken neck just by the doorway of the admiral's tomb. he must have stepped over the edge of the mount not knowing there was a steep fall."
"i am glad for your sake and terry's. for my own sake i should welcome any atonement."
he went on in a low voice.
"a strange thing happened to me—when was it—the day i went hunting?"
"it is the third day since that day."
"i did not know it was so long. you remember that black prince was lame. that was why patsy was late. he wanted me not to ride mustapha, but i was determined. the horse went all right during the day—a bit difficult and sulky at some of the jumps, but i kept coaxing him and got him along. it was a long day. we put up three foxes. the last gave us a smart run before we lost him the other side of altnabrocky. it was late by then and it was raining. you'd think mustapha would have come home quietly. there was the devil in him, poor brute; and patsy could not exorcise it. i suppose he is dead?"
"he broke his back."
"ah, well, he meant to break mine, i think. you know what wild country there is about altnabrocky. the dusk came fast and i lost my way. i knew it was going to be very dark before the moon rose; the rain was beating in my face and mustapha kept jibbing and trying to turn round, for he hated the rain and the wind on his eyes. i was considering whether i ought to lead him, and wondering where on earth we were, when a low white light came under the rim of an immense cloud. it was like daylight come back for a little while. by the light i saw a little farmhouse up a boreen off the road. i was dreading to lose the road in the darkness, for it was not much more than a track. mustapha had been dancing about a bit, but suddenly he whinnied and made a rush for the boreen. it was all right, as i wanted to go there, but he'd have gone whether i wanted to or not.
"an extraordinary thing happened. the door of the cottage opened and out stepped a little old man. i could see his figure against the light within: and mustapha, who was such a devil with all of us, started whinnying and nuzzling the old fellow, who seemed just as delighted to see him.
"'how far am i from the main road to galway?' i asked; for i knew i'd be all right once i got on to that. i had quite lost my bearings.
"'a matter of a couple of miles, your honour,' said he. i saw then that he was a little innocent-looking old man like a child, and i remembered patsy's description of the one he'd bought mustapha from in the fair of keele.
"'the horse seems to know you,' said i.
"'it's a foal of me own rarin',' said he, 'an' more betoken he was out of a mare that kilt a man, an' a fine man—poor mr. terence comerford, lord rest him! she was a beauty, an' i could do anything with her. she was sent to the fair to be sold and no one 'ud touch her. i got her for a twinty-pound note. only for her foals the roof wouldn't be over me head. this wan was the last o' them.'"
sir shawn's voice failed and died away.
"give me a little more of that stuff, mary," he said weakly. "i want to finish, and then i can sleep. you don't know how it has oppressed me."
she obeyed him, and, after an interval, he went on again.
"so that was where spitfire went. i never could make out. and there was i riding a colt of hers, and a worse one than spitfire to manage. i had great difficulty in getting mustapha away from his old master, but at last i succeeded, and we jogged along: as he covered the long road he seemed to become quieter. i think i dozed in the saddle. i know i thought it was spitfire i was riding and not mustapha. i remember calling him spitfire as i woke up and encouraged him.
"the night was as dark as i expected, but there was some glimmer from overhead and i could see the bog-pools either side of us as we crossed the bog. it wasn't much guidance to keep us to the road, but we'd crossed the railway bridge, and i could see the lights of castle talbot; i was lifting my heart towards you, mary, as i've always done at that point when—something ran across the road—it might have been only a rabbit—just under mustapha's feet. then he was out of control. he reared backwards towards the bog, trying to throw me. i had a struggle with him. it could hardly have lasted a minute, but it seemed a long time. there did not seem any chance for either of us; all i could think of was that i was riding spitfire's son and that he was going to kill me, and that, maybe, it was a sort of reparation i had to make. besides, i should be free of baker and his threats, and he could never harm you through me. but all the time the instinct to live was strong, and i'd got my feet clear of the stirrups, for i didn't want to go with him into the bog. then he threw me and i heard his hoofs tearing at the stones of the road as he went over, and he squealed. it's horrible to hear a horse squeal, mary."
he ended with a long sigh of exhaustion.
"now you are not to talk any more," she said. "the doctor would be angry with me if he knew i had let you talk so much."
"i had to get it off," he said. "i am going to sleep till morning now.
dear terence! he would have forgiven me if he knew how i suffered."
"he has forgiven you," she said steadily. "i want to tell you, before you sleep, that terence had married bride sweeney secretly. he swore her to silence, because he dreaded his mother's anger; and, poor girl, she bore all that unmerited shame and the loss of her child to keep faith with him."
"he had married her after all!"
sir shawn, by an immense effort lifted his head from the pillows.
there was a strange light on his face.
"i thought i had cut terence off in his sins, i who loved him. i said he would wake up in hell. terence has been in heaven all these years. it has been hell to me that i had sent terence to hell. now i can sleep."
he slept quietly all through the morning hours, till reilly came to relieve her.
"he looks a deal better, m'lady," said reilly, looking at him curiously. "i thought yesterday, if you'll excuse me, m'lady, that you were going to lose him. he has taken a new lease of life."
later on dr. costello corroborated reilly's verdict.
"something has worked a miracle," he said, patting lady o'gara's hand kindly. "i should have said yesterday that we could not keep him very long. there is a marked change for the better. i've been watching sir shawn these many years back and i was never satisfied with him."
"there! there!" he said as the joy broke out over her face. "don't be too glad, my dear lady. i was afraid the spine might have been injured, or something internal. i have made a thorough examination this morning. he is not seriously injured in any way. his thinness and lightness must have saved him when he was thrown. he is very thin. we must fatten him. but, my dear lady, he is going to be more or less of an invalid. there is heart-trouble. no more strenuous days for him! he will have to live with great care. you will be tied to him, lady o'gara. i can see he depends on you for everything. he will be more dependent than ever."
he said to himself, looking at her wonderfully fresh beauty—the beauty of a clear soul—that it would be hard on her to be tied up to a sick man. but her face, which had been changing during his speech, was now uplifted.
"if i can only keep him," she said, "all the rest will be nothing. he is going to be so happy with me."
she said it as though she made a vow.
