‘They used to meet here,’ he said in a low voice. ‘When he was “on his keeping.” He had some secret way of entry known only to them and one or two faithful servants. When the scent was hot she hid him here, and not even the Duke or Duchess knew. He used to read in these rooms when the house was asleep. There was a man here before me who swore he saw him at night searching the shelves for some book he wanted. It is the influence, of course. Such as he leaves the influence behind him long after he is dead.’
She was very pale. As they turned and went out of the room quietly, she said, nodding her head towards the fine new building which was going up in the courtyard:
‘After all, I do not think I shall ever read there. I doubt that I am cut out for scholarship. I do not feel that I could go back to “Middle Irish.” The studentship will have to go.’
‘No?’ he said, with a lifting of his handsome eyebrows. ‘After all, a married woman will not have much time for scholarship—of so difficult a kind.’
‘I suppose not,’ she said, as they stepped out into the open air. ‘Perhaps—after all—I worked too hard. Women have that way—have they not? I am not surprised I ... broke down.’
Then she added something quite irrelevant:
‘I wonder,’ she said, ‘if poor Miss Brooke ever saw them together. When she spoke—it was only of him. Could she have seen them—as I did?’
Katharine Tynan.