CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE OLD LOVERS After a little while I went away and left them together.
Uncle Luke came with me to the dining-room door and lit my candle for me as though he had never gone away.

When he had lit it he went with me outside the door, and, partly closing it, he said to me-- "Tell me, Bawn dear, did Mary Champion believe those lies ?" "She knew nothing of them," I answered.

"They would not tell her the things Garret Dawson had said.

But she would not have believed them.

She was vexed with them for being afraid, because she said she never would believe that you had done anything which could bring disgrace on any one who loved you." "My brave girl!" he said softly; and then he said to me with a smile that I had the handsomest and noblest gentleman in the world for a lover, and that my Anthony was coming to me as fast as he could and that they two were sworn brothers.
I ought to have slept the soundest and sweetest sleep in the world, especially as the storm had died down and the ghosts cried no longer and there seemed an atmosphere of peace and happiness over all the house.
But I was disturbed in my dreams by the face of Richard Dawson, who had loved me so much to his own hurt and in my dream I was weeping.
The household was barely astir when I awoke next morning and there was a frosty air.