She obeyed him, and, after an interval, he went on again.
"So that was where Spitfire went. I never could make out. And there was I riding a colt of hers, and a worse one than Spitfire to manage. I had great difficulty in getting Mustapha away from his old master, but at last I succeeded, and we jogged along: as he covered the long road he seemed to become quieter. I think I dozed in the saddle. I know I thought it was Spitfire I was riding and not Mustapha. I remember calling him Spitfire as I woke up and encouraged him.
"The night was as dark as I expected, but there was some glimmer from overhead and I could see the bog-pools either side of us as we crossed the bog. It wasn't much guidance to keep us to the road, but we'd crossed the railway bridge, and I could see the lights of Castle Talbot; I was lifting my heart towards you, Mary, as I've always done at that point when—something ran across the road—it might have been only a rabbit—just under Mustapha's feet. Then he was out of control. He reared backwards towards the bog, trying to throw me. I had a struggle with him. It could hardly have lasted a minute, but it seemed a long time. There did not seem any chance for either of us; all I could think of was that I was riding Spitfire's son and that he was going to kill me, and that, maybe, it was a sort of reparation I had to make. Besides, I should be free of Baker and his threats, and he could never harm you through me. But all the time the instinct to live was strong, and I'd got my feet clear of the stirrups, for I didn't want to go with him into the bog. Then he threw me and I heard his hoofs tearing at the stones of the road as he went over, and he squealed. It's horrible to hear a horse squeal, Mary."
He ended with a long sigh of exhaustion.
"Now you are not to talk any more," she said. "The doctor would be angry with me if he knew I had let you talk so much."
"I had to get it off," he said. "I am going to sleep till morning now.
Dear Terence! He would have forgiven me if he knew how I suffered."
"He has forgiven you," she said steadily. "I want to tell you, before you sleep, that Terence had married Bride Sweeney secretly. He swore her to silence, because he dreaded his mother's anger; and, poor girl, she bore all that unmerited shame and the loss of her child to keep faith with him."
"He had married her after all!"
Sir Shawn, by an immense effort lifted his head from the pillows.
There was a strange light on his face.
"I thought I had cut Terence off in his sins, I who loved him. I said he would wake up in Hell. Terence has been in Heaven all these years. It has been Hell to me that I had sent Terence to Hell. Now I can sleep."