"No. Not that, please. It is bad enough to have lived it. It was pure misery and hopelessness. I prefer to talk of anything but that."
They were still talking when Kathleen returned. She concealed the dismay and dread that she felt in finding Sylvia Custance with Desmond. She feared the old influence that had so vitally helped to ruin her brother"s life and drive him from his Faith. At present he was weak in body, and like an infant in religion. The slightest obstacle might turn him again to his former state of doubt. At this critical stage Sylvia Custance was a great danger. But it flashed into her mind that Desmond must fight his own fight unaided. If he succ.u.mbed again it was not her fault. She could only pray for him.
That evening when she bade him good-night, he said to her:
"I think I will go down to Grey Town to-morrow, Kath."
"Are you strong enough?" she asked.
"I don"t want to see Sylvia Custance again. The old life must die, Kath.
It seems rather hard, but it must be done. Make all arrangements like a dear girl."
The next morning as they travelled towards Grey Town she recognised that he had not slept well, but she made him comfortable with rugs and cushions, and watched him drop into a quiet sleep. Denis Quirk, who had insisted on accompanying them, brought them refreshments at every possible opportunity and watched over them with untiring zeal. When they arrived at Grey Town the "Layton" motor was waiting to carry them to the Quirks" home. Here they found Mrs. Quirk, very enfeebled, but smiling a glad welcome, and old Samuel Quirk, to greet them warmly.
"It is like home to me," cried Kathleen, as she kissed the kindly, withered old face.
"And home it is, honey, when you are here; but it is a lonely home without yourself and Denis," said Mrs. Quirk.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE BISHOP"S SOLUTION.
Denis Quirk, at Grey Town, threw away all thoughts of work, and laid himself out to make the time pa.s.s pleasantly for Desmond and Kathleen O"Connor. During his fortnight at "Layton" he was only in the town for Ma.s.s on the two Sundays, and once when he paid a visit to Cairns at the "Mercury" Office. That visit he curtailed to a brief fifteen minutes.
When he entered the old office, to find everything as he had left it--the old faces, the same order, even his own room arranged as it had been in his day--he felt that he could not stay for any length of time.
This was home to him, and he an exile.
"I had to see you," he said to Cairns, "but it breaks me up to visit the old place."
"It is waiting for you, Quirk, and we miss you every day. When are you coming back?" the editor asked.
"When I can thrust my innocence in the town"s face--perhaps to-morrow, possibly never," Denis answered.
"Nonsense! The scandal is dead and buried. We never realised what you were until you had left us. We want your initiative, Quirk."
"It"s very good of you to say that. Lord, how I miss you Cairns--you and the old paper! The "Freelance" is all right, but it never can be the "Mercury." And Grey Town, too! I love it for its very shortcomings,"
Denis replied.
He interviewed the staff, and parted after a few friendly words with each. The remainder of his time in Grey Town was spent at "Layton" and in the country around the town. His friends were invited to meet him at dinner--Father Healy, Mr. Green, Dr. Marsh, and a few others. Not that he feared to face the town, but because he could not bear to enter it as a mere visitor; to stand, as it were, on one side, as an onlooker and not as a worker.
"You have done wonders, they tell me," he remarked to his father, "but I feel that there is more to be accomplished, and my fingers are itching to be doing it."
"I am just keeping your seat on the Council warm for you. Say the word, and it is yours," remarked Samuel Quirk.
"When the word comes to me, I will send it along to you. Meanwhile, keep firing at them, Dad. Grey Town is yawning and rubbing its eyes. The town is beginning to realise what it is to be awake. In time it will be awake and moving briskly."
"I"ll keep on pinching them, until they must be moving just to be quit of my fingers," Samuel Quirk replied complacently. "By the time you are back with us this town will be a young city."
The time pa.s.sed pleasantly and swiftly at "Layton." Every day brought some new pleasure or excitement for the O"Connors, and Denis Quirk did his utmost to make them forget the strain that they had just been through. He proved that he could play as strenuously as he was accustomed to work, and that he was still a young man in his mind.
One morning Kathleen O"Connor attempted to thank him for his kindness.
They were in the garden, old Mrs. Quirk resting placidly in an easy-chair under a large oak tree, Kathleen seated beside her, and the two men sprawled out at full length on the lawn. Desmond lay far apart, out of earshot, while Mrs. Quirk was fast asleep.
"I don"t know how to thank you----," Kathleen began.
"There is no occasion to thank me. The grat.i.tude is on my side, Miss O"Connor. You have made my mother happy, as no one else could have done.
No payment or reward could represent what I owe you," he answered.
"But I am a paid companion," she protested, half-laughingly.
"Money cannot buy a friend, nor pay her for her friendship," he said.
"And please not to forget that I am enjoying myself as much as you are.
It seems to me that I have never been young until now. I went from school into a hard world, and I have been battling with it ever since.
It is only now I realise that there is something else beyond work to make the world pleasant. Until now it has been a case of fighting hard and keeping myself straight by means of religion. Once I was tempted to drift--that was after my trouble, over there in Golden Vale--but I was fortunate enough to find an old friend, a Father, who put things before me in their proper light."
It was the first time he had spoken to her of the dark days in Goldenvale. She had often wondered to herself as to how he had accepted what must have been a terrible experience. Now that he had confided in her, she wished to hear more.
"A priest?" she asked him.
"The Bishop. I wish you knew him."
"I do," she answered. "We have a Bishop like that."
"Then I must know him. Will you take me to him and introduce me?"
"It is a long journey from Grey Town to Millerton," she answered laughingly.
"Nothing to a motor on a fine day and good roads. We will start early in the morning, and be there for lunch, see your Bishop, and return here for dinner. Desmond shall come--but what about the Mother?"
Mrs. Quirk had awakened, and lay very quietly, with closed eyes, listening to their conversation. She knew the Bishop well, for he came to visit her whenever he chanced to be in Grey Town. His very name brought a smile to her face, but she refused to place his Lordship before his reverence the parish priest.
"Never mind me," she said. "What is one day to me? But it may mean a good deal to Denis--and still more to Desmond."
They turned in surprise to look towards the spot where Desmond O"Connor lay, apparently asleep.
"To Desmond?" Kathleen asked, in a puzzled voice.
"Sure, you don"t know the boy as I do. He comes to me, and we talk together, Desmond and I. The seed is working in the boy"s soul--I am thinking he will be a priest."
"A priest!" cried Kathleen so clearly that Desmond rolled over lazily and faced them.
"What"s that?" he asked. "You three look as if you were conspiring together. No secrets are allowed in this establishment--excepting Mrs.
Quirk"s and my own. Now, what is it, Kath.?"
"We are going to see the Bishop to-morrow," said Denis. "I intend to put his Lordship to a severe test. He shall be placed alongside my Bishop, and judged in that comparison."