The Iron Crucifix

O'Brien sat and thought for a few minutes. "What did you do before you saw Terence?" she asked.

Kathleen thought for a minute, too, for she was so much excited that she could scarcely remember. "I had been crying," she said, "as you told me, and I put some of the ointment in the little gold box on my eyes to see if it would make them look better."

"It was that," said Mrs. O'Brien. "I've heard the like of it before. When you have touched your eyes with that ointment you can always see the Good People, whether they want you to or not. That was why he tried to strike your eyes, and if he had struck them he would have put them out. You will always see the Good People now wherever you meet them. They don't like to be seen except when they choose, and so they may try to do you harm, and you must be careful. Keep the little cross always by you.

"And now come with me," the old woman went on. "I have had enough of this, and I will have no more."

"Come with you where, grandmother?" Kathleen asked.

"To the Sullivans," the old woman answered.

It was only a little while after they had gone when the Hill Terence came to the door. "Mrs. O'Brien and Miss Kathleen have gone to the Sullivans'," the servant told him.

"Will they be back soon?" he asked.

"I don't think so," the servant said; "it was only a few minutes ago that they went away."

"I will go to the Sullivans' and find them," Terence said.

Now that, you know, was about the most remarkable thing that Terence could say. He had tried to go to the Sullivans' so many times and had found so many times that his feet simply would not take him there, that he had given up trying long ago. But now he resolved that he would go, and, more than that, he had a feeling such as he had never had before that he must go.

He knew the street and the number, though he had never been there. He started off as if there could not be the slightest doubt of his going wherever he wished to go. He walked quickly through the Park and past the little pool as if he had never seen the place.