In the kitchen Hannah was busying herself over the fire that, in the confusion of the morning's event, had been suffered to die down. At the tempestuous opening of the door she turned sharply round, and for a second stood staring at the disturbed face of her young mistress; then, with the intuitive tact of her race, she suddenly opened her ample arms, and with a sob Clodagh rushed towards her.
For a long moment Hannah held her as if she had been a baby, patting her shoulder and smoothing her ruffled hair, while she cried out her grief and bewilderment. At last, with a slow sobbing breath, she raised her head.
"Oh, Hannah, I want father!" she said—"I want father!"
Hannah drew her closer to her broad shoulder.
"Whisht, now!" she murmured tenderly—"whisht, now! Sure, he's betther off—sure, he's betther off."
But Clodagh's mind was too agitated to take comfort. With a change of mental attitude, she altered her physical position—freeing herself abruptly from Hannah's embrace.
"Hannah," she cried suddenly, "Mr. Milbanke wants me to marry him. And I won't! I can't! I won't!"
Hannah's eyes narrowed sharply. But whatever her emotion, she checked it, and bent over her charge with another caress.
"Sure you won't, of course, my lamb. Who'd be askin' you?"
"No one."