She shook her head and muttered 'No.' Then, finding voice, she adjured him in jerky sentences which burned her tongue, to treat his brother with kindness during the short time they could be together. 'A time may come,' she said, 'when you will bitterly regret idle taunts. Do not lay up for yourself the fruits of remorse. I have eaten of them all my life, and know what they are like.'
'What nonsense!' Shane exclaimed fretfully. 'You're always blowing bladders into balloons! Don't bother. The Croppy and I will soon part to meet no more. Then perhaps you'll put aside these foolish terrors! I think your brain is softening.'
After a moment of reflection she turned sharply round as though urged by a power beyond control. 'Shane!' she cried, stretching out her arms lest he should stop her; 'oh! if you only knew what I have endured for your sake! Listen to me----' then, sinking back on the window-seat, she drew up her limbs together, murmuring in a tone of such anguish as fairly alarmed her first-born: 'No, no! I cannot! I _will not!_ It is too much!'
Shane recovered his self-possession. 'The poor thing's head's deranged,' he thought; and feeling that he had been wanting in respect just now, he stooped down and kissed her as she crouched like a bundle on the cushions.
This unusual display of affection seemed to revive his mother. She twined her quivering arms about him, and, dragging him to her side, whispered: 'My darling--for my sake who have gone through sore travail on your account--oh! be kind to Terence--be very, very kind. If you knew all, you would be--but you shall never know. I will bear all myself. My hand shall never pour sorrow on your head!'
The words of mystery perplexed my lord, who, never very bright, was still confused with drink. He was about to ask questions; perceiving which my lady spoke abruptly. 'Shane,' she whispered, stroking his hair with clinging affection, 'do you know what is the fondest wish of your old mother? If I saw you well married I could die content. When you were so infatuated with that horrid girl down yonder, you did not know what pain you gave me.'
'Why?' demanded Shane, the scar on his brow deepening in hue. 'She's a good girl, and I like her still. There's nothing against her that I'm aware of. I hate your bread-and-butter misses!' Had the young man been sober he would not have dared so to speak; but wine gave him courage to say that to which Norah urged him daily. 'I'll marry Norah if I like,' cried her stout champion. 'I know you've got some silly notion about Doreen. Why, I can't think. I don't want to marry her, and she doesn't want to marry me; and I won't do it--that's flat. Is it you or I who would marry her? I suppose I may follow my own wishes on the subject.'