Had Neville never returned from Scroope, and his name never been mentioned by the mother to her daughter, it may be that Kate O'Hara would not have known that she had loved him.

For a while she would have been sad.

For a month or two, as she lay wakeful in her bed she would have thought of her dreams.

But she would have thought of them as only dreams.

She would have been sure that she could have loved him had any fair ending been possible for such love; but she would have assured herself that she had been on her guard, and that she was safe in spite of her dreams.