She was more unconscious of this influence than anyone.

Those under her rule comprised one or two of the better men of the island, many of the poor women, the girls in her house, and O'Shea.

With regard to himself, Caius knew that her influence, if not augmented, was supplemented, by his belief that in pleasing her he was making his best appeal to the favour of the woman he loved.
He never from the first day forgot his love in his work.

His business was to do all that he could to serve Madame Le Maitre, whose heart was in the healing of the people, but his business also was to find out the answer to the riddle in which his own heart was bound up.

The first step in this, obviously, was to know more about Madame Le Maitre and O'Shea.
The lady he dared not question; the man he questioned with persistency and with what art he could command.
It was one night, not a week after his advent, that he had so far come to terms with O'Shea that he sat by the stove in the latter's house, and did what he could to keep up conversation with little aid from his host.
O'Shea sat on one wooden chair, with his stockinged feet crossed upon another, and his legs forming a bridge between.