He had believed fine things of him and had watched him silently.

He had wished he had been his own flesh and blood.

Perhaps he had always felt a longing for a son who might have been his companion as well as his successor.

Who knew whether a thwarted paternal instinct might not now be giving him such thinking to do as he might have done if Donal Muir had been the son of his body--dead on the battlefield but leaving behind him something to be gravely considered?
What would a man think--what would a man _do_ under such circumstances?
"One might imagine what some men would do--but it would depend entirely upon the type," she thought.

"What he will do will be different.