I saw Freda wring her hands. Then I got up and went out of the room. I thought it best to leave them together. So Freda went away, and though we said nothing, Aline, I am sure, felt a little chill at her heart against her that she could go. Yet, having seen the trouble in her face, I could not judge her. There must be reasons that we did not know. But when Lady O'Brien broached the subject I did not know how to answer her. "I don't want, my dear," she said, "to be prying and impertinent, and I can't think badly of a Brandon; yet, how is it that your sister couldn't stay to see the last of that dear saint, and to be a comfort to poor Aline when the time comes?" "I do not know, Lady O'Brien," I answered truthfully. "And why didn't you ask her, my dear?" Yes; the old lady was right. Why hadn't we asked Freda to solve for us the mystery that had somehow grown up about her. It would have been the simplest thing to do, and might have saved us the wondering pain that was in our hearts when we thought of her. "It is what we ought to have done, Lady O'Brien," I assented. "But one thing I can assure you of, Freda is not hard-hearted. If you had seen her face as I did, when she said good-bye to Pierce, you would be as sure as I am." I have always heard that consumptives take it hard to die. Looking back now on those days, I thank God that it was not so with Pierce. He seemed to have foreseen every step of the way, and to be prepared to endure it all joyfully--the night-sweats, and the fevers, and the exhaustion, and the terrible, terrible difficulty of breathing. He never complained, and his only distress seemed to be that it caused pain to those he loved so dearly. The month of May turned round in a glorious succession of scented days and silver nights. The end was very near now, and Aline was sitting up at nights with Pierce. It was a duty she would yield to no one, and even Oona forbore to press her, for we felt that she could not endure to be away from him a minute longer than she could help, and they were to be together so short a time. I could not sleep those nights. The moon was so brilliant, and the scent of hawthorn and lilac so ravishing, and all night the corncrake sawed incessantly in the ripening grasses. So I often kept vigil with Aline and Pierce, though they did not know it. I used to sit on the top step of the stairs from the great hall of Brandon, round the gallery of which many doors open. One at the stair-head opened into Pierce's room, and sitting there huddled in my dressing-gown I could hear his laboured breathing, and sometimes the soft murmur of Aline's voice as she spoke to him, or her quiet movements as she went to and fro in the room. I sat there sometimes till well into the dawn. Over my head the great hall window held the east, and through its colours the sunrise came magnificently.