Mrs. Comerford acted with characteristic thoroughness. Perhaps she felt that she had much to atone for.

It was Christmas Day by the time Stella could be moved to Inch, where amazement reigned. Mrs. Comerford had given her orders. Miss Stella's room was to be prepared. She was coming back again, with her mother. The Bride's Room, which was the finest bedroom at Inch, was to be prepared for Mrs. Terence Comerford.

Mrs. Clinch, to whom the order was given, gasped.

"Mrs. Terence Comerford, ma'am?" she repeated.

"Yes: I hope you're not becoming deaf. My son was married, and Miss Stella is his daughter. He chose to keep his marriage a secret. I have only just learnt that his wife is living."

No more than that. Mrs. Comerford was not a person to ask questions of. She went her way serenely, with a queer air of happiness about her while Inch was swept and garnished. Of course Clinch and Mrs. Clinch debated these amazing happenings with each other; of course the servants buzzed and the news spread to the village and about the countryside with amazing swiftness.

Christmas morning saw the transference from the Waterfall Cottage to Inch accomplished. Stella was by this time able to sit up for the journey, and since there could be no proper Christmas festivity at Castle Talbot Terry O'Gara was to lunch at Inch. He was witness of the strange ceremonial air with which Mrs. Comerford laid down her seals of office, so to speak.

"Mrs. Terence Comerford will take the head of the table," she said.

Then she passed to the foot of the table while Mrs. Terence, flushed and half tearful, took the vacated place.

Terry was in the seventh heaven. There was no longer anything between him and Stella, who had accepted him as though their happiness had never been threatened. Stella, with that air of illness yet about her which made her many times more dear and precious to her lover, looked with shining eyes from her mother to her grandmother.

In the drawing-room afterwards, while Stella rested in her own pretty room, and her mother, rather overwhelmed by her new estate, sat by her, Mrs. Comerford talked to Terry.

"It is a long Winter here," she said. "I remember frost and snow in January when it was dangerous to walk across your own lawn because of the drifts. If the snow does not come it will be wild and wet. Stella was brought up in Italy. I should hurry up the marriage, young man, and take her away. Now that your father is going on so well there is no reason for delay. Besides, we want to get it out of her head that she was pursued by some ruffian the night she wandered and fell by the empty lodge at Athvara."

"Poor little angel," said Terry, "I am only too anxious, Mrs.
Comerford. I shall be the happiest man alive if she will consent."

"Of course she will consent. She is an obedient child," said Mrs. Comerford, with an entire oblivion of Stella's marked disobedience in the not very remote past.

"It is adorably unselfish of you to be willing to part with her," said
Terry, his face shining with happiness.

"For the matter of that I shall have my daughter-in-law," said Mrs. Comerford superbly. "She has never travelled. We shall probably do some travelling together. You had better resign your commission."

"Oh, must I? I might get a year's leave because of my … Stella's health. I am very fond of the Regiment. But of course I should not put it before her."

"Of course not. I don't mind your sticking to the Regiment, as you say, for a bit longer. Your father and Stella's father each took their turn at soldiering. It is as well to be prepared—in case of need. There might be a bolt out of the blue sky. So much more reason for being happy while we may."

"You know that Susan Horridge—or Mrs. Baker, but she won't be called that—identified the dead man I found by the Admiral's tomb as her husband?"

"Yes, I heard so. A good riddance. I wonder if he was hunting for Susan and the boy when he met with that accident. He was 'warm' as the children say, close up against Waterfall Cottage. You are to make Stella forget that dream of hers of being pursued by some terrible creature that night."

"I will do my best," said Terry. "A pity some one does not take
Athvara! It is a fine old house all falling to rack and ruin."

"I have heard a rumour that some Order is buying it for a boys' school. That would be best of all. A crowd of boys about would soon banish the ghosts. They would delight in the Admiral's tomb. My own boy and Shawn O'Gara, your father, made a cache there one cold Winter, pretending they were whalers in the North Sea. It was the time of Dr. Nansen. The tomb used to be open then. They had all sorts of queer things stowed away under the shelf that held the Admiral's coffin. Queer things, boys!"

She looked into the fire for a few minutes.

"Your father loved my boy," she said. "I believe he'd have died to save him. There was a time when I was angry against him, because he lived and was warm and my boy was cold, and because your mother had married him. I always looked to see her my Terence's wife. I was wrong. Terence had chosen his own wife."

The marriage was fixed for early in the New Year. Every one seemed extremely happy. Terence had got his leave of absence for a year. Stella was making excellent progress and had begun to take a shy interest in the preparations for the wedding and the details of the wedding journey. She had seen Sir Shawn, lying on the invalid couch which had the very latest improvements to make his invalid's lot as easy as possible. He had drawn down her face to his and kissed it, saying something inexplicable to Stella.

"You are the dove with the olive branch to say that the floods have retreated."

He was very happy about the marriage, and Lady O'Gara, watching him as though he were a beloved and delicate child, smiled at his saying, a bright brave smile which made Stella say afterwards to Terry that his mother's smile was like Winter sunshine.

"It used to be so full of fun," said Terry, "her dimples used to come and go, but she is troubled about my father, though she says she is the happiest woman alive, because she can keep him perhaps for a long time yet."

Patsy Kenny was painting and papering his house in the stable yard, in the............