It was surprising that this should have happened now. His mind sprang back to all that tenderness with which his thoughts of her had been surrounded through these long days of dreaming, when he had contrived to meet her, as if by accident, on her way from school.
All through the next day his heart was upon her; the thought of her would give peace. Into every vacant moment she would come with the full light of her presence. He had suddenly relapsed into the mood that had imprisoned him after the summer holidays. He stood aloof from Father Considine and did not wish to see him through the whole of his long day in the college at Ballinamult.... All the way home he pictured her. She was luring him now as she had always lured him—towards a fairer vision of the valley.
He noticed how the summer was again flooding over the fields like a great river spilling wide. It was a glorious coincidence that she should be returning to him now, a creature of brightness at a time of beauty.
The road seemed short this pleasant afternoon, and the customary feeling of dusty weariness was not upon him as he leapt lightly off the bicycle at his mother's door. Mrs. Brennan came out to meet him eagerly. This was no unusual occurrence now that he had again begun to ascend the ladder of the high condition she had planned for him. She was even a far prouder woman now, for, somehow, she had always half remembered the stain of charity hanging over his uprise in England. Besides this he was nearer to her, moving intimately through the valley, a living part of her justification.... Her fading eyes now looked out tenderly at her son. There seemed to be a great light in them this afternoon, a great light of love for him.... He was moved beneath their gaze. And still she continued to smile upon him in a weak way as within the grip of some strong excitement. He saw when he entered that his dinner was not set out as usual on the white table in the kitchen.... She brought him into the sewing-room. And still she had the same smile trembling upon her lips and the same light in her eyes.... All this was growing mysterious and oppressive. But his mood was proof against sad influences. It must be some tale of good fortune come to their house of which his mother had now to tell.
"D'ye know what, John? The greatest thing ever is after happening!"
"Is that a fact, mother?"
"Though mebbe 'tis not right for me to tell you and you all as one as a priest, I may say. But sure you're bound to hear it, and mebbe a little knowledge of the kind might not be amiss even to one in your exalted station. And then to make it better, it concerns two very near friends of yours, Mr. Ulick Shannon and Miss Rebecca Kerr, I thank you!"
John Brennan's mind leaped immediately to interest. Were they gone back to one another, and after what he had thought to-day? This was the question his lips carried inwardly to himself.
"I don't know how I can tell you. But Father O'Keeffe was at school to-day in a great whet. He made a show of her before the children, Mrs. Wyse and Miss McKeon, of course, giving him good help. He dismissed her, and told her to go about her business. He'll mebbe speak of her publicly from the altar on Sunday."