I said nothing, but my heart leaped.  I was a proud woman to think that Anthony Cardew loved me, and still I was grieved for the others.

“You will breakfast with me, child?” she went on.

“I am furiously hungry,” I replied.  “And afterwards—­will you come back with me to Aghadoe?”

“I think not.  If your uncle wants me he will find me here.”

“I think he will see Garret Dawson first.  He will not come to you till all that is cleared up.”

“It need never be cleared for me.  Whatever the story was, it is for me as though it never existed.”

I made a most prodigious breakfast.  I had no anxiety as to what they might think about my absence at Aghadoe; I felt they would know where I was.

I said no more to my godmother about returning with me.  I felt she was right in waiting for Uncle Luke where she was, and I was sure he would go to her when he had confronted Garret Dawson and wrung the truth from him.  But after breakfast, lest they should be waiting for me at Aghadoe, I returned home the way I had come, feeling as though I walked on air.  I could have run and leaped, except when a thought came to me of Richard Dawson, and then my heart was suddenly heavy.

I entered the woods by the postern gate, and hurried along with a heart full of gratitude to the kind God who had brought good out of evil and had delivered us from our troubles.

Just at the edge of the wood some one stepped from one of the side paths full in my way.  It was Richard Dawson, and I was amazed at the havoc the sufferings of one night had wrought in him.

“Don’t be afraid of me, Bawn,” he said.  “I’m not here to trouble you, only there is something I want to give you.  Here are those precious papers my father held.  I have been waiting here for some chance messenger to take them.  They are my gift to you.  Let Lord St. Leger see that he has everything and then destroy them.”

He held out a sealed packet to me and I took it.

“Everything is there,” he said.  “Henceforth we are as harmless as a snake that has had its poison-bag out.  Think kindly of me, Bawn.  I am going a long journey.  I have had a scene with my father.  He swears that not a penny of his money shall come to me.  What matter?  I shall do without it very well.  Good-bye, Bawn.”

“God-speed,” I said, altering the word of farewell.

He turned round and came back to me.

“Nay, not God-speed,” he said harshly.  “God has little to do with such as I am.”

And then he was gone.

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE JUDGMENT OF GOD

I walked into the dining-room and found Uncle Luke at breakfast, with Lord and Lady St. Leger on each side of him, eating little themselves, but pressing one thing after another on him.

I felt a sense of a new alertness about the house.  Although the old servants were faithful they had grown a little slipshod in their ways, seeing that it mattered little to their employers.  Now things had suddenly assumed a swept and garnished air.  One felt that the master had come home.