"The maid did it," said the Squire, with a smile. "I doubt if he would have undertaken the journey for the luggage alone."
Irene laughed, and then, in a serious mood, said, as she stroked Bersak's head, "Do you think it right for me to remain here. You are my oldest friend, and my guardian until I married Warren. Ought I to stay?"
"Of course, of course," he replied impatiently. "It is snowing fast again. Warren would not expect you to go home on such a night."
She settled down to spend a quiet evening with him. She knew what this night meant to him, what it might have meant to her had all gone well with Ulick.
Watching him as he sat with the firelight on his face, she noticed how he had aged during the past year. No, not aged exactly, for he was still a firm, strong, active man; but there was something in his noble, if severe, face that told of a great struggle racking him within.
She knew the largeness of his heart, and his notions of honour, which many modern hypocrites laughed at, because their little minds could not grasp his greatness. She remembered how he guarded her [as] his own child when her father, Colonel Carstone, died and left her as a legacy to his old friend. He brought her as a girl of sixteen to Hazelwell, and said—
"Irene, this is your home. Your father gave you to me, and it is a sacred gift. You will get on with Ulick, he is a good lad, and you have known each other for some years. Hazelwell will be the brighter for your presence."
She revered Redmond Maynard above all men, and whatever he did she considered right, until—until Ulick left his home.
"He is thinking of him now," she thought. "Oh, why does he not come home? The old scandal is dead; I have forgiven him, surely he has—he must."
Bersak sat with his head in her lap looking into her face, his sharp, keen eyes blinking, and occasionally he turned to look at the silent figure in the chair. Irene did not disturb him, but to know his thoughts she would have given much.