Myles Shannon had ever borne a passionate grudge against Mrs. Brennan. He had loved his brother Henry, and he felt that she, of all people, had had the most powerful hand in instituting the remorse which had hurried him to his doom. Mrs. Brennan, on the other hand, believed firmly that Henry Shannon would have married her, and made of her a decent woman, but for the intervention of his brother Myles. Furthermore, she believed darkly in her heart that the subtle plan of the disastrous "honeymoon" had originated in the brain of Myles, although in this she was wrong. She thought of Henry as being never of that sort. He was wild and mad, with nothing too hot or too heavy for him, but he was not one to concoct schemes. So, when Henry died, Mrs. Brennan had thought well to transmit her hatred of the Shannon family to his brother Myles.  
Myles Shannon lived a quiet life there in his big house among the trees upon the side of Scarden, one of the hills which overlooked the valley. In lonely, silent moments he often thought of his brother Henry and of the strange manner in which he had burned out his life. With the end of his brother before him always as a deterrent example, he did not interest himself in women. He interested himself in the business of his cattle and sheep all through each and every day of the[Pg 65] year. He did not feel the years slipping past him as he went about his easy, contented life, watching, with great interest, his beef and mutton grow up in the fields.
 
The cattle in particular stood for the absorbing interest and the one excitement of his life. He looked upon his goings and comings to and from the markets at Dublin and at Wakefield in England as holiday excursions of great enjoyment.
 
It was during one of his trips to England that he had met Helena Cooper at some hotel in Manchester. He was one to whom the powers of Romance had remained strangers, yet now, when they at last came into his life, it was with a force that carried away all the protection of his mind. He wanted some one to fill the loneliness of the big house on Scarden Hill, and so he set his heart upon Helena Cooper.
 
He returned to the valley a different man. Quite suddenly he began to have a greater interest in his appearance, and it was noticed that he grew sentimental and became easy in his dealings. It began to be whispered around that, even so late in life, almost at the close of the middle period which surely marks the end of a man's prime, Myles Shannon had fallen in love and was about to be married.
 
It was a notable rumor, and although it was fifteen years since the death of Henry Shannon, Mrs. Brennan, as one having a good reason to be interested in the affairs of the Shannon family, became excited.
 
"Indeed it was high time for him to think of it," she said to a neighbor one Sunday morning, "before he turned into a real ould blackguard of a bachelor—and who d'ye say the girl is?"
 
[Pg 66]
 
"Why, then, they say she's an English lady, and that she's grand and young."
 
Mrs. Brennan was a great one for "ferreting-out" things. Once she had set her mind upon knowing a thing, there was little possibility of preventing her. And now she was most anxious to know whom Myles Shannon was about to marry. So when she saw the old bent postmistress taking the air upon the valley road later on in the day she brought her into the sewing-room and, over a cup of tea, proceeded to satisfy her curiosity.
 
"There must be letters?" she said after they had come round to a discussion of the rumored marriage.
 
"Oh, yes, indeed. There's letters coming and going, coming and going," the old lady wheezed. "A nice-looking ould codger, isn't he, to be writing letters to a young girl?"
 
"And how d'ye know she's young?"
 
"How do I know, is it, how do I know? Well, well, isn't that my business? To know and to mind."
 
"You're a great woman."
 
"I do my duty, that's all, Mrs. Brennan, as sure as you're there. And d'ye imagine for a moment I was going to let Myles Shannon pass, for all he's such a great swank of a farmer? She is a young girl."
 
"Well, well?"
 
"There's no reason to misdoubt me in the least, for I saw her photo and it coming through the post."
 
"A big, enlarged photo, I suppose?"
 
"Aye, the photo of a young girl in her bloom."
 
"I suppose she's very nice?"
 
"She's lovely, and 'tis what I said to myself as I looked upon her face, that it would be the pity of the[Pg 67] world to see her married to a middling ould fellow like Myles Shannon."
 
"And I suppose, now, that she has a nice name?"
 
"Aye. It is that. And what you might call a grand name."
 
A long pause now fell between the two women, as if both were endeavoring to form in their minds some great resolve to which their hearts were prompting them. The old postmistress delivered her next speech in a whisper:
 
"Her name is Helena Cooper, and her address is 15 Medway Avenue, Manchester!"
 
The two women now nudged one another in simultaneous delight. Mrs. Brennan ran the direction over and over in her mind as if suddenly fearful that some dreadful stroke of forgetfulness might come to overthrow her chance of revenge upon her false, dead lover through the great injury she now contemplated doing to his brother.... She made an excuse of going to the kitchen to put more water upon the teapot and, when she went there, scribbled the name and address upon the wall beside the fireplace.
 
When she returned to the sewing-room the old postmistress was using her handkerchief to hide the smile of satisfaction which was dancing around her mouth. She knew what was just presently running through Mrs. Brennan's mind, and she was glad and thankful that she herself was about to be saved the trouble of writing to Miss Cooper.... Her hand was beginning to be quavery and incapable of writing a hard, vindictive letter. Besides that Mr. Shannon was an influential man in the district, and the Post Office was not above[Pg 68] suspicion. She was thankful to Mrs. Brennan now, and said the tea was nice, very nice.
 
Yet, immediately that the information, for which she had hungered since the rumor of Myles Shannon's marriage began to go the rounds, was in her keeping, Mrs. Brennan ceased to display any unusual interest in the old, bespectacled maid. Nor did the postmistress continue to be excited by the friendly presence of Mrs. Brennan, for she, on her part, was immensely pleased and considered that the afternoon had attained to a remarkable degree of success.... From what she had read of her productions passing through the post, she knew that Mrs. Brennan was the woman who could write the strong, poisonous letter. Besides, who had a better right to be writing it—about one of the Shannon family?
 
Soon she was going out the door and down the white road towards Garradrimna.... Now wasn't Mrs. Brennan the anxious and the prompt woman; she would be writing to Miss Cooper this very evening?... As she went she met young couples on bicycles passing to distant places through the fragrant evening. The glamor of Romance seemed to hang around them.
 
"Now isn't that the quare way for them to be spending the Sabbath?" she said to herself as she hobbled along.
 
The Angelus was just beginning to ring out across the waving fields with its sweet, clear sound as Mrs. Brennan regained the sewing-room after having seen her visitor to the door, but, good woman though she was, she did not stop to answer its holy summons. Her mind was driving her relentlessly towards the achievement of[Pg 69] her intention. The pen was already in her hand, and she was beginning to scratch out "a full account," as she termed it, of Mr. Myles Shannon for the benefit of Miss Helena Coo............