' I got afraid, John, that he might do you harm, an' afraid to
tell you too--an'--an' so you promise me you won't fight the Dead Boxer?
Thank God! thank God! then your blood will not be upon me!"

"Aunt, she's lost," he exclaimed; "the brain of my _colleen dhas_ is
turned!"

"John, won't you save me from the Dead Boxer? There's nobody able to do
it but you, Lamh Laudher Oge!"

"Aunt, aunt, my girl's destroyed," said John, "her heart's broke!
Ellen!"

"But to-morrow, John--to-morrow--sure yo' won't fight him
to-morrow?--if you do--if you do he'll kill you--an' 'twas I
that--that"----

O'Rorke had not thought of raising her from the posture in which
she addressed him, so completely had he been overcome by the frantic
vehemence of her manner. He now snatched her up, and placed her in the
little arm-chair alluded to; but she had scarcely been seated in it,
when her hands became clenched, her head sank, and the heavy burthen of
her sorrows was forgotten in a long fit of insensibility.

Lamh Laudher's distraction and alarm prevented him from rendering
her much assistance; but the aunt was more cool, and succeeded with
considerable difficulty in restoring her to life. The tears burst in
thick showers from her eyelids, she drew her breath vehemently and
rapidly, and, after looking wildly around her, indulged in that natural
grief which relieves the heart by tears. In a short time she became
composed, and was able to talk collectedly and rationally.

This, indeed, was the severest trial that Lamh Laudher had yet
sustained. With all the force of an affection as strong and tender as
it was enduring and disinterested, she urged him to relinquish his
determination to meet the Dead Boxer on the following day. John soothed
her, chid her, and even bantered her, as a cowardly girl, unworthy of
being the sister of Meehaul Neil, but to her, as well as to all others
who had attempted to change his purpose, he was immovable. No; the
sense of his disgrace had sunk too deep into his heart, and the random
allusions just made by Ellen herself to the Dead Boxer's villainy, but
the more inflamed his resentment against him.

On finding his resolution irrevocable, she communicated to him in a
whisper the message which the stranger had sent him. Lamh Laudher,
after having heard it, raised his arm rapidly, and his eye gleamed with
something like the exultation of a man who has discovered a secret that
he had been intensely anxious to learn.