"You said yourself that Bridyeen was an innocent creature. You forgave Terence, who was her tempter. You love his memory and you have called your one son after him. Is it fair, is it just?"
She was frightened at her own temerity. The subject of Terence
Comerford had always been like an open wound to her husband.
"Did I forgive Terence?" he asked with a wonder that had something child-like about it; "I was very angry with Terence, dreadfully angry. Do you remember that passage, Mary?
"Alas they had been friends in youth;
you know how it goes on:
"And to be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain."
She had slipped an arm about his neck, and her hand went on softly caressing his cheek.
"I think we shall have to tell Terry," she said, "if we persist in our refusal. We could not take up such an untenable position. Unless…"—she hesitated.
"Go on, Mary," he said.
"Unless we were to accept Grace's story of Stella's birth. Why should it not be true?" She asked the question piteously. "Are you sure, Shawn, about the other thing?"