mself
she should be his wife! Heaven knows if the hate was not better bestowed
than the love; and yet, she did love him to the last,--ay, even, after
cruelty and desertion, ay, after his supposed death; when she heard that
he married another, and was living in splendor at Cadiz, ay,--Tiernay!
after all that, she told me on her death-bed, she loved him still!"

"I think the nunnery is the best resource," said the doctor, recalling
the sick man from a theme where his emotions were already too powerfully
excited.

"I believe it is," said the old man, with more of energy than before;
"and I feel almost as if Providence would give me strength and health
to take her there myself, and see her safe before I die. Feel that pulse
now: isn't it stronger?"

"You are better, much better already," said the doctor; "and now, keep
quiet and composed. Don't speak--if it was possible, I 'd say, don't
think--for a few hours. The worst is nigh over."

"I thought so, Tiernay. I felt it was what old Joe Henchy used to call
'a runaway knock.'" And, with a faint smile, the old man pressed his
hand, and said, "Good-bye."

Scarcely, however, had the doctor reached the door, when he called him
back.

"Tiernay," said he, "it's of no use telling me to lie still, and keep
quiet, and the rest of it. I continue, asleep or awake, to think over
what's coming. There is but one way to give me peace,--give me some
hope. I 'll tell you now how that is to be done; but, first of all, can
you spare three days from home?"

"To be sure I can; a week, if it would serve you. Where am I to go?"

"To Dublin, Tiernay. You 'll have to go up there, and see this young
man, Cashel, yourself, and speak to him for me. Tell him nothing of our
present distress or poverty, but just let him see who it is that he
is turning out of the lands where their fathers lived for hundreds of
years. Tell him that the Corrigans is the oldest stock in the whole
country; that the time was, from the old square tower on Garraguin, you
could n't see a spot of ground that was n't our own! Tell him,"--and,
as he spoke, his flashing eye and heightened color showed how the theme
agitated and excited him,--"tell him that if he turns us from hearth
and home, it is not as if it was like some poor cotter--" He paused, his
lips trembled, and the big tears burst from his eyes and rolled heavily
down his face. "Oh! God forgive me for saying the words!" cried he, in
an accent of deep agony. "Why