“Are you following me, Sean? I’m almost thirty years old. Have you nothing better to do?”

“Never mind how I know. I’m not having my sister trifled with.”

“My God, Sean, how many girls have you trifled with in your life?”

“They weren’t my sister.”

“Well, it’s my business and not yours.”

“I can have him taken care of, you know.”

“Oh my God, Sean, don’t even be thinking such a thing.”

“Do you love him?”

“He’s very good to me.”

“If there’s a child, he must marry you, Mary. I wouldn’t allow anything else.”

“Sean, I don’t want you interfering in my life. This is my doing as much as his. If you’re going to be this way, I don’t want to see you any more. I mean it.”

Sean was silent after that for a moment or two.

“If you’re ever in trouble, Mary, I want you to come to me,” he said gently. “You’ve always a place in my house.” He paused. “Just one thing you’re to promise me. You’ll never give a child away. Never. I’ll look after any child.”

“You’re not to touch Theodore—he’s not to blame. You must promise me that.”

“As you wish.”

That October, when Theodore had decided he should go down to the battlefields, she had suffered a good deal. But she hadn’t let him see. And she’d realized also that it was better he should go then, before she became so attached that the parting would be too painful to bear.

He’d been gone a week when she wondered if she might be with child. During the time of her uncertainty, she’d been so frightened that it was all she could do to concentrate on her work in the house. And Sean’s words had come to her often then. But to her relief, that danger had passed.

Theodore had been gone many months, and after his return, though very tempted, she had been determined to keep him only as a friend. God knows, she thought, he’s sure to take up with other women if he hasn’t already.

And so they had remained friends. She hadn’t taken another lover, so far, and she hadn’t found a man she wanted to marry. But she’d kept her secret memory, and she was proud of it.