father's embrace. "Is he gone?" she asked before even she would throw
herself into her lover's arms.

"Neville has paid him money," said the mother.

"Yes, he has gone," said Fred; "and I think,--I think that he will
trouble you no more."

"Oh, Fred, oh, my darling, oh, my own one. At last, at last you have
come to me. Why have you stayed away? You will not stay away again? Oh,
Fred, you do love me? Say that you love me."

"Better than all the world," he said pressing her to his bosom.

He remained with her for a couple of hours, during which hardly a word
was said to him about his marriage. So great had been the effect upon
them all of the sudden presence of the Captain, and so excellent had
been the service rendered them by the trust which the Captain had placed
in the young man's wealth, that for this day both priest and mother were
incapacitated from making their claim with the vigour and intensity of
purpose which they would have shewn had Captain O'Hara not presented
himself at the cottage. The priest left them soon,--but not till it had
been arranged that Neville should go back to Ennis to prepare for his
reception of the Captain, and return to the cottage on the day after
that interview was over. He assumed on a sudden the practical views of
a man of business. He would take care to have an Ennis attorney with
him when speaking to the Captain, and would be quite prepared to go to
the extent of two hundred a year for the Captain's life, if the Captain
could be safely purchased for that money. "A quarter of it would do,"
said Mrs. O'Hara. The priest thought L2 a week would be ample. "I'll be
as good as my word," said Fred. Kate sat looking into his face thinking
that he was still a god.

"And you will certainly be here by noon on Sunday?" said Kate, clinging
to him when he rose to go.

"Most certainly."

"Dear, dear Fred." And so he walked down the hill to the priest's house
almost triumphantly. He thought himself fortunate in not finding the
priest who had ridden off from Ardkill to some distant part of the
parish;--and then drove himself back to Ennis.

CHAPTER V.

FRED NEVILLE IS AGAIN CALLED HOME TO SCROOPE.

Neville was intent upon business, and had not been back in Ennis from
the cottage half an hour before he obtained an introduction to an
attorney. He procured it through the sergeant-major of the troop. The
sergeant-major was intimate with the innkeeper, and the innkeeper was
able to