It is all very well to stick pins in your rival's seat (so she must explain to her), but it is your distinct interest to be quite certain that you yourself may not be called upon to sit on them. Gillin's spite against my lady was doubtless great. She would do much to injure her, but not to the extent of ruining her own daughter, surely? For, somehow or other--probably on the principle that life not being hard enough, we must practise self-torture--my lady had quite made up her mind as to Norah's parentage. Now Gillin must be bidden forthwith to stop this scandal--and my lady was the one person who could venture to broach the subject. Then qualms of pride arose within the latter's breast. The twain had never spoken but once--on the dreadful evening at Daly's club-house. At Castle-balls they had looked with Medusan gaze right through each other; for the compact was there--no less binding that it was unwritten--that the mistress and the wife should never speak, save on the subject of that secret. Had things not gone crooked, nothing could have been more satisfactory than such a compact. As things were, was not Mrs. Gillin--inflamed to vulgar wrath through her sinful designs being exposed--certain to set her foul tongue clacking, to delve into old sores whose cicatrices were yet soft, to plunge into long-buried matters within hearing, perhaps, of other vulgar wretches, who, in surprised horror, would blab to all the world. Thus did my lady attempt to gloss over her own dread, to veneer the promptings of her pride with plausible reasons for avoiding that which conscience--speaking through unconscious Doreen--had specially declared must be done without delay. But it was more than a merely human woman might be called upon to do. In my lord's time people, more sensitive than the herd, marvelled that the countess could bear the insulting presence of her flaunting rival with such stoical equanimity. That much she had bravely borne. But of her own free will to descend from a pedestal occupied with dignity during half a lifetime; to lower herself to an interview with the concubine, who would surely jump upon the rival, voluntarily abased, was more, much more, than might be demanded of a mortal. It was not possible to call upon Mrs. Gillin. The only remaining plan was to take Shane away; to follow Doreen's counsel, and move the household to Ennishowen.