The girl nodded without speaking, but a sudden rush of happy colour covered her innocent face.
"Don't be thinkin' of that, my lamb. The ould lord'll come round before that. Sure he couldn't be as hard-hearted a naygur as he lets on."
"I'm afraid not, Bridget. He has a little son of his own now, you see, and so the less reason for forgiving papa."
Bridget lifted her eyes and hands.
"Him wid a little son indeed! Cock him up wid a little son, an' him wid wan foot in the grave! Well, there's no gettin' over the ways of some people. But 'tis time for me to be gettin' about my work, or I'll be as bad as that Murphy woman. Just you call to me, Miss Mary, if you want to know anything; but don't go spoiling them eyes on Mr. Mick, puttin' too fine work into that baronite's curtains."
She went off then, and for a time there was silence in the room, broken only by the occasional efforts of Pamela's Irish terrier, Pat, to better Bridget's bed-making. The windows, brown-paper panes and all, were flung wide open, and there was a lovely prospect of plain and hill, and wood and river, stretching away into the pearl-grey distances. A little wind sang like a lullaby in the leaves of the sycamore outside the window, and from the garden below came a drowsy humming of bees.
But to the girl who sat there dreaming dreams a scene widely different presented itself. She saw a parched Indian plain and a row of low white buildings. All around there was a clearing, but beyond was the mass of the jungle, where the jackals cried by night and the lions roared thunderously. Somewhere in that baking place she saw the face she loved—the plain, honest, devoted face of Mick St. Leger, who had passed from the Militia to be a subaltern in a marching regiment. Five years at least would elapse before he came home—five years, with all their chances of trouble and loneliness, and, alas! of death.
Mary Graydon trembled over her sewing as the longing for her lover became almost intolerable. Then she snapped a thread off short, and lifted her eyes in a quiet way which had become natural to her when she was alone. She could not know what was happening to her dear boy under those deadly skies; but there was One who knew and whose love was greater still, and she could trust that love even if its will was to slay her.
There was a quick step on the stones, and the sound of someone rushing up two steps at a time.
"Oh! here you are, Molly," cried Pamela, rushing in breathless. "We've got home, papa and I; and the glass for these windows is all in a smash, and three of the new tumblers, and the youth's shaving-glass. And what do you think, darling? The youth's coming to-day—this afternoon. That dear old dunderhead of a father of ours has been reading 'Thursday' for 'Tuesday,' and has just had a telegram to undeceive him."