"Certainly. We shall bring the puppy together. I shall tell Stella."
A sudden misgiving came to her when she had said it. Perhaps she ought to be too careful of Stella to bring her into touch with a woman who had slipped from virtue, however innocently and pitiably. It was a scruple which might not have troubled her if Stella had been her own child. There was another thing. Would Grace Comerford, if she knew all, be willing that her adopted daughter should be friends with Mrs. Wade?
Again something leaped at her from the woman's eyes, something of a gratitude which took Lady O'Gara's breath away.
"It will be nice to have a little dog of my own," she said. "It will be great company in the house at night. A little dog like that would be almost like a child. And in the daytime he'd give me word if any one was coming."
Suddenly she seemed to have a new thought. She leant forward and said in the same agitated way:
"You wouldn't be bringing Mrs. Comerford?"
"No, no," said Lady O'Gara. "I shall not bring Mrs. Comerford."
"I knew her long ago. She was kind, but she was very proud," Mrs. Wade said, dropping back into the shadow from which she had emerged.
So it was of Mrs. Comerford she was afraid! What was it? Conscience? Did she think Terence Comerford's mother could have heard anything in that far away time?
"I shall not bring Mrs. Comerford," she said. "Stella is much with me at Castle Talbot."