e, on her finger, Miss, an' a
priest in the room, an' if ever man was woman's husband in the sight of
God, Richard Devereux is married to Nan Glynn, poor an' simple as she
stands there.'

'Stop, mother,' sobbed Nan, drawing her back by the arm; 'don't you see
the lady's sick.'

'No--no--not anything; only--only shocked,' said poor Lilias, as white
as marble, and speaking almost in a whisper; 'but I can't say Captain
Devereux ever spoke to me in the way you suppose, that's all. I've no
more to say.'

Nan Glynn, sobbing and with her apron still to her eyes, was gliding to
the door, but her mother looked, with a coarse sort of cunning in her
eye, steadily at the poor young lady, in some sort her victim, and added
more sternly--

'Well, my lady, 'tis proud I am to hear it, an' there's no harm done, at
any rate; an' I thought 'twas only right I should tell you the thruth,
and give you this warnin', my lady; an' here's the atturney's writin',
Ma'am--if you'll plaze to read it--Mr. Bagshot, iv Thomas
Street--sayin', if you'll be plazed to look at it--that 'tis a good
marriage, an' that if he marries any other woman, gentle or simple,
he'll take the law iv him in my daughter's cause, the black, parjured
villian, an' transport him, with a burnt hand, for bigamany; an' 'twas
only right, my lady, as the townspeople was talking, as if it was as
how he was thryin' to invagle you, Miss, the desaver, for he'd charrum
the birds off the trees, the parjurer; and I'll tell his raverence all
about it when I see him, in the morning--for 'tis only right he should
know. Wish the lady good-night, Nan, you slut--an the same from myself,
Ma'am.'

And, with another courtesy, the Glynns of Palmerstown withdrew.

CHAPTER XL.

OF A MESSENGER FROM CHAPELIZOD VAULT WHO WAITED IN THE TYLED HOUSE FOR
MR. MERVYN.

Mervyn was just about this time walking up the steep Ballyfermot Road.
It was then a lonely track, with great bushes and hedgerows overhanging
it; and as other emotions subsided, something of the chill and
excitement of solitude stole over him. The moon was wading through
flecked masses of cloud. The breath of night rustled lightly through the
bushes, and seemed to follow her steps with a strange sort of sigh and a
titter. He stopped and looked back under the branches of an old thorn,
and traced against the dark horizon the still darker outline of the
ivied church tower of Chapelizod, and thought of the dead that lay
there,