"If he comes back he will be prosecuted for deserting you. We shall not give you up to him. You may be sure of that. Here is my hand on it."
She held out a firm white hand which showed a couple of beautiful rings. Susan looked at it for a moment in amazement before she took it. The colour flooded back into her face. Her eyes became quieter. Then she took the hand and kissed it, hard.
"Thank you, m'lady," she said. "I trust you."
Lady O'Gara walked to the door and paused to ask for news of Georgie, who was already at school. He was doing very well. It was so easy for him to reach the school by this gate, and he was beginning to get on well with the boys; and Mr. McGroarty, Mr. O'Connell's successor, gave a very favourable report of him.
"We feel so safe inside the big wall, me and Georgie," said Susan Horridge. "It isn't likely he'd come on us from the Park." She looked a little apprehensively over the beautiful prospect of trees in their early Summer beauty, and the shining greensward; with the hills beyond. Through an opening in the trees there was a glimpse of a deer feeding.
"No one here associates you with that man. Patsy and I have taken care of that," Lady O'Gara assured her. "If he came back looking for you no one could tell him where you were. Would you like a dog for company? There is a litter of puppies of Shot's breed in the stable-yard. You shall have one, if you like it."
"Is it like it?" asked Susan, her face lighting up,—"I should be very pleased to have it. So would Georgie. That boy's fair gone on animals."
"Those dogs make very good watch-dogs, though they are so gentle. You should see how Shot keeps walking before and behind me if he thinks he sees a suspicious character when we are out walking! I shall send down a puppy, then."
Susan Horridge stood in her doorway shading her eyes with her hand, as she looked after Lady O'Gara. There were tears in her eyes. "The Lord didn't forget us," she said to herself.
"I shall have to speak to Patsy," Lady O'Gara was thinking as she hurried along. She was a little late for lunch. "Poor Patsy! It would be a thousand pities if his heart should open to that poor creature for the first time."