There was no one there. I went back to the
library. As I went in my grandmother came to meet me.
"I thought I heard a carriage," she said in a trembling voice. "Did
Richard bring you home? What is the matter, Bawn?"
"The matter!" I repeated, "the matter! Why, the matter is that Richard
Dawson will have none of me. He knew nothing of his father's bargain.
When he found that I had been bought and sold for that he would have
none of me. I would have gone through with it, Gran. You must forgive me
and ask grandpapa to forgive me."
She stared at me with a pale face. In the pause there was a sound like a
heavy sigh; then the falling of a body.
"Bawn, Bawn, what have you done?" she cried, hurrying away from me to
the recess by the fireplace. "It is your grandfather. He has fainted
once before this afternoon, and the doctor says it is his heart. Oh, my
dear, my Toby, you have had too much to bear and it has killed you!"
She was kneeling by my grandfather and had taken his head into her lap.
He had struck the fender as he fell, and the blood was flowing from a
wound on his head, staining his silver hair.
Neil Doherty came rushing in. He must have been at the door to have
heard the fall.
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