“That?”

“You won’t be cross with me, will you?  But Martin is so fond of you. . . .  He always has been fond of you, ever since he was a boy . . . but this time. . . .”

“Yes?”

“This time I thought . . .  I really, really thought he was too fond of you.”

I had to hold my breast to keep down the cry of joy that was rising to my throat, but the dear soul saw nothing.

“Not that he said so—­not to say said so, but it’s a mother to see things, isn’t it?  And he was talking and talking so much about Mary O’Neill that I was frightened—­really frightened.”

“Frightened?”

“He’s so tender-hearted, you see.  And then you . . . you’re such a wonderful woman grown.  Tommy the Mate says there hasn’t been the like of you on this island since they laid your mother under the sod.  It’s truth enough, too—­gospel truth.  And Martin—­Martin says there isn’t your equal, no, not in London itself neither.  So . . . so,” she said, trembling and stammering, “I was thinking . . .  I was thinking he was only flesh and blood like the rest of us, poor boy, and if he got to be too fond of you . . . now that you’re married and have a husband, you know. . . .”

The trembling and stammering stopped her for a moment.

“They’re saying you are not very happy in your marriage neither.  Times and times I’ve heard people saying he isn’t kind to you, and they married you against your will. . . .  So I was telling myself if that’s so, and Martin and you came together now, and you encouraged him, and let him go on and anything came of it . . . any trouble or disgrace or the like of that . . . it would be such a terrible cruel shocking thing for the boy . . . just when everybody’s talking about him and speaking so well too.”

It was out at last.  Her poor broken-hearted story was told.  Being a married woman, unhappily married, too, I was a danger to her beloved son, and she had come to me in her sweet, unmindful, motherly selfishness to ask me to protect him against myself.

“Whiles and whiles I’ve been thinking of it,” she said. “’What will I do?’ I’ve been asking myself, and sometimes I’ve been thinking I would speak to Martin.  I didn’t dare do it, though.  But when I heard last night that you had come home to see your father, I said:  ’Doctor, I’ll go over and speak to herself.’  ‘You’ll never do that, Christian Ann,’ said the doctor.  ‘Yes, I will,’ I said.  ’I’ll speak to the young mistress herself.  She may be a great lady now, but haven’t I nursed her on my knee?  She’ll never do anything to harm my boy, if I ask her not to.  No indeed she won’t.  Not Mary O’Neill.  I’ll never believe it of her.  Never in this world.’”

The sweet old face was beaming but it was wet with tears, too, and while trying to get out her pocket-handkerchief, she was fumbling with the flowers which she was still holding and passing from hand to hand.