“The wind has carried down the last walls that were standing in the south wing,” she replied. “David said that they have been crumbling for years and that lately, with feet going back and forth over them, they have grown more and more ready to fall. I am glad you did not go farther, you might have been hurt worse than this.” The old man’s brain seemed to have been aroused by the shock into a moment of absolute clearness. “I should have been buried entirely, I am thinking,” he remarked, “and there would have been an end to an old fool and his whims and fancies. I sought to set things right in my own way and have done nothing but harm, while it is you and Mr. David have found out all the trouble by your plain good sense and loyal friendship, and will know how to mend what has gone amiss. It is your standing so firm by Miss Miranda that has made things go well again.” “But it was you who told me to stand by her,” Betsey reminded him comfortingly. “I would never have dreamed that I could help her if you had not told me so.” He was quiet a little but presently spoke again. “When they come to carry me home it may be the pain of lifting me over the wall will disorder my wits once more. So I should tell you what was to be a secret, that Mr. Ted comes home to-day. That was why I was so anxious the bad luck should be gone on this very night, and thanks to you, it is. He was not quite certain of the time and did not wish to disappoint his sister, so it was to old Michael he sent the message to be on the watch for him. We were always great friends, Mr. Ted and me, and to think that the blessed Saint Christopher has brought him home safe at last.” He must have made an effort to tell this, feeling that his senses were once more slipping from him for almost immediately he went off again into confused muttering. “He saved my life,” he said once, more clearly, “he saved my sheep, him and those great beautiful white dogs, but—” the thread of consciousness had snapped again—“they were always the hunters, those greyhounds of the King of Connemara; though they lived a thousand years ago you can hear their cry over the hills to this day!” It was, to Betsey, a moment of great relief, when she heard feet upon the grassy pathway, saw the gleam of lanterns through the rifts in the broken walls and knew that help had come. Later, however, there was a very hard hour at the old man’s tiny cottage when the doctor attended to his broken leg and the gash in his head. “He will get through all right,” was the cheerful assurance given when the affair was over. “I have attended Michael before, he gets himself into many scrapes but he always comes out of them.” The nurse had come down to give assistance, but she and the doctor were both needed at Mr. Reynolds’ bedside. When questioned about Miss Miranda’s father, the doctor merely shook his head.