d? Various thoughts ran through his brain, and different
resolves--half-formed but still, perhaps, capable of shape--presented
themselves to him for the future. It was still on the cards--on the
cards, but barely so--that he might make money out of these people;
but he must wait perhaps for weeks before he again commenced such an
attempt. He might perhaps make money out of them, and be merciful to
them at the same time;--not money by thousands and tens of thousands;
that golden dream was gone for ever; but still money that might be
comfortably luxurious as long as it could be made to last. But then
on one special point he made a firm and final resolution,--whatever
new scheme he might hatch he alone would manage. Never again would he
call into his councils that son of his loins whose rapacious greed
had, as he felt sure, brought upon him all this ruin. Had Aby not
gone to Castle Richmond, with his cruelty and his greed, frightening
to the very death the soul of that poor baronet by the enormity of
his demands, Mr. Prendergast would not have been there. Of what
further chance of Castle Richmond pickings there might be Aby should
know nothing. He and his son would no longer hunt in couples. He
would shake him off in that escape which they must both now make from
Cork, and he would not care how long it might be before he again saw
his countenance.

But then that question of ready money; and that other question,
perhaps as interesting, touching a criminal prosecution! How was he
to escape if he could not raise the wind? And how could he raise
the wind now that his milch-cow had run so dry? He had promised the
O'Dwyers money that evening, and had struggled hard to make that
promise with an easy face. He now had none to give them. His orders
at the inn were treated almost with contempt. For the last three days
they had given him what he wanted to eat and drink, but would hardly
give him all that he wanted. When he called for brandy they brought
him whisky, and it had only been by hard begging, and by oaths as to
the promised money, that he had induced them to supply him with the
car which had taken him on his fruitless journey to Castle Richmond.
As he was driven up to the door in South Main Street, his heart was
very sad on all these subjects.

Aby was again sitting within the bar, but was no longer basking in
the sunshine of Fanny's smiles. He was sitting there because Fanny
had not yet mustered courage to turn him out. H