Lady O'Gara took the bewildered head into her arms and stroked it with tender touches as though it was the head of a frightened bird, one of those birds that sometimes came in at her windows, and nearly killed themselves trying to escape before she could give them their liberty. She sought in a frightened way for something to say to the girl and could find nothing.
"Granny is so angry with me," Stella went on. "She has found out that I came here. She said she would not have me keep low company, that she was shocked to find I could slip away from her to a person not in my own class of life. She had noticed that I was always slipping away. She talked about throwbacks. What did she mean by that? She was very angry when she said it."
"Oh, I am sorry you made her angry, Stella." Mary O'Gara had found her tongue at last. She had no idea of the inadequacy of what she said. Her thoughts had gone swiftly back to the days when she had trembled before Grace Comerford's cold rages. Her thoughts, as though they were too tired to consider the situation of the moment, went on to Terence. Poor Terence! She remembered him red and white before his mother's anger, her tongue that stung like a whip, the more bitter where she roved.
"I ran away from her," Stella went on. "She told me to go to my room, as though I was a child. I went, but I got out of the window: it is not far from the ground. I came here only to find her gone. I had been running all the way thinking of how she would comfort me. She has taken nothing with her but Keep. I expect Keep followed her. I would not have minded anything if she had been here. The old woman called her my mother. Is she mad, Cousin Mary? How could Mrs. Wade be my mother?"
Her eyes asked an insistent question. Lady O'Gara was a truthful woman. The candour of her face did not belie her. She tried to avoid the eyes, lest they should drag the truth from her.
"She is only very old," she answered, haltingly. "Not mad, but perhaps…"
"The odd thing is,"—Stella put by what she had been about to say as a trivial thing,—"that I wish what the old woman said was true. I wish it with all my heart. She was like what I think a mother must be to me. I have always been running away to her, ever since you brought me first. She comforted me. I have always felt there was something I did not know. Granny would never tell me about my father and mother. If she is not my mother why should I feel all that about her? She made up to me for everything. And Sir Shawn was cold. He used to like me, but now he does not. He is afraid,"—a little colour came to her cheek,—"that I will marry Terry. He need not be afraid. If Mrs. Wade is my mother I shall not marry Terry. He can marry Eileen Creagh and please his father! Do not tell me she is not my mother."
Was the mother, the nameless mother, worth all that to her child? It seemed so.
"Oh, the poor boy!" Lady O'Gara said, with sudden tears, clasping her hands together. "Is he to have no word in it?"
"Not if I am Mrs. Wade's daughter. She told me how she lived with her grandmother who kept a shop in the village long ago. Of course Sir Shawn would not like it. I see that quite well, and I am not thinking of marrying Terry or any one. I am only thinking that Mrs. Wade may be my mother. I've always wanted a mother. How I used to envy the Italian children when I was little. They had such soft warm, dark-eyed mothers. And I had only Granny—and Miss Searle. Miss Searle was fond of me but she was often cross with me. Granny never loved me as a mother would have. I was sometimes afraid of her though she was good to me"—her cheeks were scarlet by this time,—"I am going to stay here and wait for Mrs. Wade to return. If she does not come I must go to look for her. Terry need not trouble about me, nor Sir Shawn…."