Poor Susan—then thirteen—took it sorely to heart. Her mother in heaven—had she looked down that night when Bonnie lay under the dripping tree, and seen her pretty lamb alone, deserted?—the mother who had left him to Susan to look after and care for. She had seemed to think more of Bonnie in her dying moments than of the baby who had brought death to her with his own life. Susan had been left in charge, as it were—sweet Susan, who was barely twelve, and who, with her soft, shy ways and lovely face, should have been left in charge herself to someone capable of guiding her tender footsteps across earth’s thorny paths. Her remorse dwelt with her always, and became a burden to her, and made havoc of her colour for many a day. Of course she grew out of all that—youth, thank God, is always growing—and at last, after many days, joy came to her again, and all the glorious colour of life, and all the sweetness of it. But she never lost a little pulsing grief that came to her every now and then, telling her how she ought to have seen that Bonnie had not wandered so far afield. Oh, if only he could be made strong and well again. This was the heart of the sad song that she often sang for herself alone, when time was given her in her busy life. She had dreamed dreams of how it would be with the little lad if he could have been sent abroad. She had heard of certain baths, and of wonderful cures worked by them. If he could go abroad to one of them he might recover. But such baths were as far out of her reach as heaven itself. It seemed hard to Susan, to whom life was still a riddle. And she reproached herself always, and always mourned that there would never come a time when Bonnie would be strong again, as he was when his mother left him, and when she might meet that dear mother in heaven without fear of reproaches. All this lay in the background of Susan’s life, and now, as years grew, seldom came to the front. But the child was ever her first thought and her dearest delight, and the fact that he was not as his brothers were was the one little blot on the happiness of her young life. CHAPTER XIV. ‘O that this calculating soul would cease To forecast accidents, Time’s limping errors, And take the present, with the present’s peace, Instead of filling life’s poor day with terrors.’ About seven o’clock, Wyndham (who had come up to Dublin by the afternoon train), going down Nassau Street, finds himself face to face with a tall, big, good-humoured-looking man of about thirty-two. ‘Hallo! that you?’ cries the latter, stopping Wyndham, who, in somewhat preoccupied mood, would have gone by without seeing him. The preoccupation disappears at once, however, and it is with genuine pleasure that he grasps the hand held out to him. ‘You, Crosby, of all men!’ ‘Even so.’ ‘Why, last week, when we met in Paris, you told me you were going to Vienna to see a friend there.’