They went back to the little house, Susan explaining and apologizing. She did not know how she had come to sleep so soundly. She supposed it must have been because she'd been sleeping the fox's sleep, keeping one eye open on Miss Stella, for several nights past, till she was fair worn out. Still, she didn't ought to have done it.
As they stood by the end of the little brass bed on which Stella lay, tossing in fever, she told the rest of the tale—how she had awakened with the first glimmer of dawn and realized that she had slept the night through; how, going to Stella's room she had missed her; how she had searched house and garden in a frenzy without finding any traces of her; finally she had discovered that the gate stood open.
"I declare to goodness, m'lady," said Susan. "I never even thought of Baker when I went out to look for her. After all, if Georgie was safe, there isn't much more he could do to me than he's done. I don't know why it was I turned in at old Lizzie's cottage, an' there I found the poor lamb up against the door, for all the world as though she'd tried to get in and dropped where she was. She've been talking ever since of some one follerin' her. And then she calls out for her mother to come. Once or twice I thought I heard her callin' Master Terry to come and save her. I can't tell whether she was frightened or whether she fancied it. But she do cry out, poor little soul, in mortal terror of some one or something."
Standing there by the foot of the bed Lady O'Gara's heart went out in tenderness to the sick girl as though she was her own little daughter. What maze of terror had she passed through, whether in dreams or reality, that had brought that look to her face? While they watched Stella got up on her elbow and peered into the corners of the room with a terrible expression. She struggled violently for a moment as though held in a monstrous grip. Then she fell back on her pillow, exhausted.
There came a knocking at the door. The doctor. In a few seconds Dr. Costello was in the room with his invaluable air of never being flurried, of there being no need for flurry. He did not even express surprise, though he must have felt it, at seeing Stella there, nor at the state in which he found her.
"I shall explain to you presently," Lady O'Gara said, "why she is here instead of at Inch. Mrs. Comerford has quarrelled with her."
"Ah," said the doctor, getting out his clinical thermometer. "It has been her bane, poor lady, that difficult temper. Years have not softened it apparently."
"But for all that she has a noble nature," Lady O'Gara said. "This will be a terrible grief to her."
"If they have fallen out I should not recommend her presence here when Miss Stella returns to herself," the doctor said quietly. "She must be kept very quiet. Evidently she has had a bad shock of some kind, following on a strained condition of the nerves."
After his examination Lady O'Gara told him something of Stella's case. He did not ask for more than he was told. He did not even show surprise at hearing that Stella had a mother living.