There was something in her voice that frightened me; it sounded so hopeless, so without any capacity for resistance.

“My aunt is own maid to Lady Garmoy,” she went on.  “She could get me a place in her ladyship’s household, under herself.  I might go, but, Miss Bawn, I’d never know the day nor the hour he mightn’t draw me back to him.  All the same, you mustn’t think me a bad girl, Miss Bawn.  It isn’t right for him or for me; sure, I know it isn’t.  I can’t say my prayers as I used to.  But if I went among strangers I couldn’t tell the day or the hour it ’ud be too much for me, and I’d be stealing out of the house and taking the train back.  It isn’t as if there was some one I could tell, some one that would hold me, that I could run to when the fit was on me.”

“Nora,” I said, with a sudden thought, “how would it be if you were to come to me?  My grandmother will let me have a maid of my own when I want one.  Come to me, and Bridget Connor will teach you your duties, and you will have the little room off mine to sit and sew in.  You need never go outside the Abbey gates if you do not care to.  The place is big enough to walk about in.  And if you are hard pressed you can run to me, Nora.  You will feel that I am just a girl like yourself, and will not be afraid.  And I shall hold your hands till the danger is past.”

“May the Lord reward you, Miss Bawn!”

“Then I may speak to Lady St. Leger?”

“I shall love to be with you, Miss Bawn.  Sure, there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you.  He’ll never know where I am, no more than if I’d slipped off to my aunt at Lady Garmoy’s.  I need never be leaving the Abbey unless to go to Mass on a Sunday, and he’ll never know anything about that.  ’Tis for his sake as much as my own.  ’Tisn’t right that he should be making love to a poor girl.”

I stooped down and kissed Nora on the cheek.  It seemed incredible that Richard Dawson should have filled Nora’s innocent heart with much the same feeling that I had for Anthony Cardew, but I said nothing.  Who is to answer for such things?

“I will come back with you now and speak to Lady St. Leger,” I said.

CHAPTER XXII

THE DINNER-PARTY

The day following that Nora became an inmate of Aghadoe.  She had no relative nearer than an uncle, who had a houseful of children of his own, so that Nora’s absence must be a relief in a manner of speaking; and my grandmother never refused me anything in reason.  Nora was modest and dainty in her ways, and having been brought up by the nuns she was an excellent needlewoman, so that she had so much equipment for the post of my maid.

The day came round on which we were to dine at Damerstown.  I had not meant to tell Nora that we were going there, but she discovered it from something my grandmother said when she came to my room, and I noticed that she sat with tightly compressed lips over her sewing that afternoon.