We had always been very proud and exclusive at Aghadoe.
A little while after that dinner at Damerstown Nora confessed to me with tears that she had stolen out in my absence and had lain in wait for Richard Dawson.
"And after all, Miss Bawn," she said, "I was punished, for he only lifted his hat to me and rode away; and I felt as if I must fall in the track of his horse's feet and implore him to kiss me as he used to.

And he never looked back, Miss Bawn." "I am glad to hear it," I said, feeling that the words were hard and cold.
"I don't know what's come over him," poor Nora said miserably, "unless that, maybe, a good love has come to him at last.

I'd just as soon be dead, Miss Bawn." Soon after that she began talking of going to America, and I used to notice that she looked strangely at me.

But I never saw what every one else must have seen; partly, no doubt, because of that old troth between Theobald and me which I thought my grandparents held to be binding.

I ought to have mentioned in its proper place that there had been no cause for Theobald's weeks of silence, or but a trifling one, and that his letters came as of old and were very full of gay doings.