loved, so cherished, should meet no more.

O'Connor briefly informed his cousins of the position in which he was
placed, requesting them at the same time to accompany him to the field,
and this having been settled, we separated, each to his own apartment.
I had wished to sit up with O'Connor, who had matters to arrange
sufficient to employ him until the hour appointed for M'Donough's visit;
but he would not hear of it, and I was forced, though sorely against
my will, to leave him without a companion. I went to my room, and, in
a state of excitement which I cannot describe, I paced for hours up and
down its narrow precincts. I could not--who could?--analyse the strange,
contradictory, torturing feelings which, while I recoiled in shrinking
horror from the scene which the morning was to bring, yet forced me to
wish the intervening time annihilated; each hour that the clock told
seemed to vibrate and tinkle through every nerve; my agitation was
dreadful; fancy conjured up the forms of those who filled my thoughts
with more than the vividness of reality; things seemed to glide through
the dusky shadows of the room. I saw the dreaded form of Fitzgerald--I
heard the hated laugh of the captain--and again the features of O'Connor
would appear before me, with ghastly distinctness, pale and writhed in
death, the gouts of gore clotted in the mouth, and the eye-balls
glared and staring. Scared with the visions which seemed to throng with
unceasing rapidity and vividness, I threw open the window and looked out
upon the quiet scene around. I turned my eyes in the direction of the
town; a heavy cloud was lowering darkly about it, and I, in impious
frenzy, prayed to God that it might burst in avenging fires upon the
murderous wretch who lay beneath. At length, sick and giddy with excess
of excitement, I threw myself upon the bed without removing my clothes,
and endeavoured to compose myself so far as to remain quiet until the
hour for our assembling should arrive.

A few minutes before four o'clock I stole noiselessly downstairs, and
made my way to the small study already mentioned. A candle was burning
within; and, when I opened the door, O'Connor was reading a book, which,
on seeing me, he hastily closed, colouring slightly as he did so. We
exchanged a cordial but mournful greeting; and after a slight pause he
said, laying his hand upon the volume which he had shut a moment before:

'Purcell, I feel perfectly calm, though I cannot