Whatsoever befell there were all the long, long years to come--with only the secret left and the awful fear that sometime she might begin to be afraid that it was not a real thing--since no one had ever known or ever would know and since she could never speak of it or hear it spoken of.
"I'm so afraid," she shuddered at last in a small low voice.

"I'm so _lonely_!" The old fairy woman's stroking hand stopped short.
"Is there--anything--you'd like to tell me--anything in the world ?" she asked tremulously.

"There's nothing I'd mind." The pretty head on her lap shook itself to and fro.
"No! No! No! No!" the small choked voice gave out.

"Nothing--nothing! Nothing.

That's why it's so lonely." As she had waited alone through the night in her cradle, as she had watched the sparrows on the roofs above her in the nursery, as she had played alone until Donal came, so it was her fate to be alone now.
"But you came away from London because there were too many people there and you wanted to be in a place where there was nothing but an empty cottage and an old woman.