Deirdre said nothing, but her eyes were full.
Mrs. Cameron stretched a hand out to her.
"Oh, dear," she said, "they say it is Jess, Davey's going to marry, but I can't think it's anybody but you he cares about. When first you went away we used to talk about you; Davey used to say: 'She's a Pelling, I do believe, mother'—because of the fairy-tale I used to tell him. He made me tell it over and over again after you'd gone away. It was about Penelop, the tylwyth teg, who married the farmer's boy. Do you remember, Deirdre? I'm sure I told it to you, too, in the old days."
"Yes," Deirdre cried breathlessly, "and ever afterwards their descendants were called Pellings, the children of Penelop, and it was said, if they had dark hair and bright eyes, there was fairy blood in their veins."
Mrs. Cameron smiled.
"Yes," she said, "fancy you remembering it after all this long time, dear. Once, soon after you'd gone away, Davey said to me, 'I wonder if Deirdre married me, mother, would she melt away if I touched her with a piece of iron.' He sat thinking and smiling a long time, Deirdre, and I felt so happy about you both.... Then you came back ... and it was all different."
"I've been thinking perhaps it was Conal has come between you." The eyes of Davey's mother were very wistful. "But if you're not going to marry Conal, perhaps you can be good friends with Davey again, Deirdre. He would do anything in the world for you once. The other night when he came home—he had been at McNab's until late and the drink was strong on him—I couldn't let him into the house for fear of his father waking. He slept in the barn and I sat near him ... I was afraid he might light a match and drop it in the hay ... and he talked in his sleep—sobbing and crying—and it was your name he was saying, over and over again to himself, as though his heart was breaking over it, 'Deirdre! Deirdre!'"
"And there's some affair with McNab troubling him," Mrs. Cameron went on. "I don't know what it is. Oh, I don't know what he's been doing to get mixed up with McNab in anything—I know he can mean Davey no good whatever. He has sworn to have vengeance on his father for long enough. They say you're the most beautiful woman in the country, Deirdre. If only you'd help me to keep Davey away from McNab's! You could! He'd do anything for you in the old days. What is it has come between you?"
Mrs. Cameron's eyes were very like Davey's had been when he kissed her under the trees, Deirdre thought.
She put her hand in Mrs. Cameron's.