Page:Shiana - Peadar Ua Laoghaire.djvu/103

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SHIANA
89

"You parted from such a woman rather than you would do such a wrong," said she.

With that she went up to him, and she put the chain round his neck and put the jewel into his bosom, over his heart.

"Keep it there," said she, "and in the greatest difficulty that will ever overtake you, and in the hardest strait that will ever come upon you, your courage will never fail."

No sooner did she put her hand into his bosom than he felt as if something exploded in his ears. The mist vanished. Earth and sky became bright. The raging grief went from his mind, and his own heart came back to him.

As soon as the woman had uttered the last word, a kind of white mist rose around her which hid her from his sight, and then the mist drifted away and she was not there.

He looked round him at the sky and at the earth. His mind was as calm as it had ever been in his life. He looked over at the town and over at Grey Dermot's house, eastward at the widow's house, over at his own house, down at John Kittach's house. He gave a little laugh, and turned his face homeward.

Abbie.—I wonder what Michael said when he saw him coming.

Peg.—Not one of them spoke a word when they saw him coming. Short as the time was since John Kittach had come in the morning, the report had already been spread about the country that Shiana was out of his mind; that the match had been almost made, that Short Mary had refused the marriage, and that Shiana had gone out of his senses; that people had seen him during the day going through the