"My son is waiting for me downstairs in your pretty room."
Mrs. Wade bowed her head without comment on Terry's waiting. "We were sorry to hear of the accident to Sir Shawn. I hope he is better," she said.
How quietly they were talking! It might have been just conventional drawing-room talk. No one looking on could have guessed at the web of difficulties they were snared in, at the tragedy that menaced so many harmless joys. Again Lady O'Gara felt surprise at her own attitude towards Mrs. Wade, at Mrs. Wade's towards her. She had no feeling of inequality, nothing of the attitude of the woman who has always been securely placed within reverence and affections, to the woman who has gone off the rails, even though she be more sinned against than sinning. Mrs. Wade met her so to speak on equal grounds. There was no indication in her manner of the woman who had stepped down from her place among honoured women.
And yet, the mere saying that Terry was in the house had somehow affected Mrs. Wade. There was agitation under the calm exterior. In the atmosphere there was something disturbed, electrical.
She hardly seemed to hear Lady O'Gara's answer to her inquiry about Sir
Shawn. She got up after a few minutes, and, saying that she would get
some tea, went out of the room; to recover her self-possession, Lady
O'Gara thought.
When she had gone Stella turned her eyes on Lady O'Gara's face.
"When I get well," she said, "I am going away with my mother. It will be best for everybody. I shall begin a new life with her."
"Oh, Stella, child! You can't give us up like that! You have made your place in our hearts."
There were tears in Mary O'Gara's kind eyes and in her voice.
Stella reached out and patted her hand as though she were the older woman.