gh.'

Like a man stunned almost to insensibility, Kearney crossed his hands
before him, and sat gazing out vacantly before him.

'Can you listen to me? can you attend to me, dear papa?'

'Go on,' said he, in a faint voice.

'It is written in a great hurry, and very hard to read. It runs thus:
"Dearest,--I have no time for explainings nor excuses, if I were disposed
to make either, and I will confine myself to a few facts. I was married
this morning to Donogan--the rebel: I know you have added the word, and I
write it to show how our sentiments are united. As people are prone to put
into the lottery the number they have dreamed of, I have taken my ticket
in this greatest of all lotteries on the same wise grounds. I have been
dreaming adventures ever since I was a little child, and it is but natural
that I marry an adventurer."'

A deep groan from the old man made her stop; but as she saw that he was not
changed in colour or feature, she went on--

'"He says he loves me very dearly, and that he will treat me well. I like
to believe both, and I do believe them. He says we shall be very poor for
the present, but that he means to become something or somebody later on. I
do not much care for the poverty, if there is hope; and he is a man to hope
with and to hope from.

'"You are, in a measure, the cause of all, since it was to tell me he would
send away all the witnesses against your husband, that is to be, that I
agreed to meet him, and to give me the lease which Miss O'Shea was so rash
as to place in Gill's hands. This I now send you."'

'And this she has sent you, Kate?' asked Kilgobbin.

'Yes, papa, it is here, and the master of the _Swallow's_ receipt for Gill
as a passenger to Quebec.'

'Read on.'

'There is little more, papa, except what I am to say to you--to forgive
her.'

'I can't forgive her. It was deceit--cruel deceit.'

'It was not, papa. I could swear there was no forethought. If there had
been, she would have told me. She told me everything. She never loved
Walpole; she could not love him. She was marrying him with a broken heart.
It was not that she loved another, but she knew she could have loved
another.'

'Don't talk such muddle to _me_,' said he angrily. 'You fancy life is to
be all courting, but it isn't. It's house-rent, and butchers' bills, and
apothecaries, and the pipe water--it's shoes, and schooling, and arrears
of rent, and rheumatism, and flannel waistcoats, and toothache have a