whom I should like to tell
everything. Father Brosnan is a much better sort of clergyman. He is
my confessor, and I choose to go by what he tells me."

"Then you will be a traitor to your father."

"I am not a traitor," said Florian.

"And yet you admit that some promise has been given--some promise
which you dare not own. You cannot but know in your own heart that
I know the truth. You have seen that man Carroll doing the mischief,
and have promised him to hold your tongue about it. You have not,
then, understood at all the nature or extent of the evil done. You
have not, then, known that it would be your father's duty to put
down this turbulent ruffian. You have promised, and having promised,
Father Brosnan has frightened you. He and Pat Carroll together have
cowed the very heart within you. The consequence is that you are
becoming one of them, and instead of moving as a gentleman on the
face of the earth, you will be such as they are. Tell the truth, and
your father will at once send you to some school in England, where
you will be educated as becomes my brother."

The boy now was sobbing in tears. He lacked the resolution to
continue his lie, but did not dare to tell the truth.

"I will," he whispered.

"What will you do?"

"I will tell all that I know about it."

"Tell me, then, now."

"No, Edith, not now," he said.

"Will you tell papa, then?" said Edith.

"Papa is so hard to me."

"Whom will you tell, and when?"

"I will tell you, but not now. I will first tell Father Brosnan that
I am going to do it; I shall not then have told the lie absolutely to
my priest."

On this occasion Edith could do nothing further with him; and,
indeed, the nature of the confession which she expected him to make
was such that it should be made to some person beyond herself. She
could understand that it must be taken down in some form that would
be presentable to a magistrate, and that evidence of the guilt of Pat
Carroll and evidence as to the possible guilt of others must not be
whispered simply into her own ears. But she had now brought him to
such a condition that she did think that his story would be told.

CHAPTER XIV.

RACHEL'S CORRESPONDENCE.

There was another cause of trouble at Morony Castle, which at the
present moment annoyed them much. Frank had received three or four
letters from Rachel O'Mahony, the purport of them all being to
explain her troubles with Mahomet M. M., as she called the m