for there are some things too sacred for
words. I know that he had then no intention of ever returning to
public life, and though he was obviously a man very, very ill, in the
physical sense, yet I could see it was the deeper wounds of the soul
that really mattered.

I have had sorrows in my life and deep afflictions, the scars of which
nothing on this earth can cure, yet I can say I never felt parting so
poignantly as with this friend, whom I loved most and venerated most
on earth. I returned to Ireland that night, not knowing whether I
should ever see the well-beloved face again. He went to Italy on the
morrow to seek peace and healing, away from the land to which he had
given more than a life's labour and devotion. He enjoined his friends
not to communicate with him, but he promised to watch from a distance,
and that if the occasion ever arose he would not see them cast to
destruction without effort of his duty made.

How well and generously he kept that promise these pages will show.

CHAPTER XVIII

A CAMPAIGN OF EXTERMINATION AND ITS
CONSEQUENCES

Mr O'Brien went abroad in March 1909, leaving his friends in
membership of the Irish Party. His last injunction to us was that we
should do nothing unnecessarily to draw down the wrath of "the bosses"
upon us and to work as well as we might in the circumstances
conscientiously for the Irish cause. I had some reputation, whether
deserved or otherwise, as a successful organiser, and I wrote to Mr
Redmond offering my services to re-establish the United Irish League
in my own constituency or in any other place where it was practically
moribund. I received a formal note of acknowledgment and heard not a
word more, nor was my offer ever availed of. On the contrary, the fiat
went forth that the constituencies of those who had for five years
remained staunch and steadfast to the policy of Conciliation should be
organised against them and that not a friend of Mr O'Brien should be
allowed to remain in public life. We were not yet actually cut off
from the Party or its financial perquisites, but in all other ways we
were treated as political pariahs and outcasts and made to feel that
there was a rod in pickle for us.

In the autumn of 1909 I was attending my law lectures in Dublin when
it was conveyed to me that a raid on my constituency was contemplated,
that the officials at the Leag