All this put Esther's love affairs greatly out of my mind. Daily she and her godmother drove over to see how Pierce was, and to sit with him a little. When his voice had sunk almost to a whisper he still tried to keep up the old merry banter with the friend who had been so good to him and us, and I have seen the dear old woman respond bravely while the big tears stood in her eyes. Once when she had had to go away to conceal her emotion, she said to Aline: "'Tis not tears of sorrow, my dear, I'm giving him, 'tis only that it dazzles my sinful old eyes to have sight of one of God's saints passing. Hush, now, my dear, don't be grudging him his joy. 'Tis for you who love him to be glad for him." "But he is so young to die," said poor Aline, "and he and I were to have been always together." "Ah, my child," responded the old woman with a sudden intuition, "you might have lost him more cruelly! Don't you see that he's had some trouble, young as he is, that has just ended his life for him. And kinder so. He wasn't one to grow hard and wicked, nor yet was he one to live carrying a dead heart about with him the rest of his days. Indeed, indeed, God gave him the better part." "Oh," said Aline, "you think he has had a great sorrow?" "I am sure of it, child, but maybe it was just through that same sorrow that God gathered him." "Yet let him keep the rest But keep them with repining restlessness: Let him be rich and weary, that at least, If goodness lead him not, yet weariness May toss him to my breast"-- I said softly from my corner, where they had not seemed to notice me. Lady O'Brien turned round sharply. "That's it, Hilda, that's it. Your poetry has said it a thousand times better than I ever could." Esther, during these visits, would sit on the floor by Pierce, and now and again would lay her cheek to his hand. "I wish I could tell him, Hilda," she said once, "but I can't trouble him now. If all were well with us it would be another matter, but I must not bring trouble near him. And yet his touch comforts me." Esther's fears now were mainly concerned with her lover's health. Her experience of Pierce had taught her to look for the signs and tokens of illness, and sometimes she came to me in a paroxysm of terror because she thought Harry De Lacy looked frailer than when last she had seen him, or because she had heard him cough, or noted the transparency of his hand against the light. He was not an over-frequent visitor at Annagower, not more so than many other gentlemen, and as yet the understanding between him and Esther was not a formal one. She could not, she said, in these sad days, trouble anyone about her affairs, and it was better that he should be very patient and not come too often, nor try to force things to a conclusion.