CHAPTER XXI.
THE NEW MAID I went away to that glade in the wood of happy memories to think things out, and dropped down there amid the flowers of which it was full, with my eyes fixed on the wood-anemones and violets without seeing them.
Troubles were coming, indeed, so thick and fast that my mind was in a confusion.

I did not know whether to tell my godmother or not what I had overheard.

She had a straight way of going to the root of things.
Supposing that she did as she had threatened, and went to Dawson himself for the truth, might she not exasperate him into making public the thing which had so much power to frighten Lord and Lady St.Leger?
I had gathered that there was disgrace hanging over us, disgrace, and homelessness for Theobald and me.

Aghadoe Abbey was dear to us as flesh and blood.

Was it possible that it could pass away from us into the possession of the Dawsons?
Why, I would a thousand times rather that fire had it and that it should be consumed to ashes.
It should have been a small thing by comparison that my grandfather had said I was to go to the Dawsons' dinner-party, but I had so violent an aversion to going that the matter really bulked large in the list of troubles.