She was roused from her self-searching thoughts by the doctor's voice and the touch of his hand.

"Good-bye for the present, Miss Kingsnorth. Sure it's in good hands I'm lavin' him. But for you he'd be lyin' in the black jail with old Doctor Costello glarin' down at him with his gimlet eyes, I wouldn't wish a dog that. Faith, I've known Costello to open a wound 'just to see if it was healthy,' sez he, an' the patient screamin' 'Holy murther!' all the while, and old 'Cos' leerin' down at him and sayin': 'Does it hurt? Go on now, does it? Well, we'll thry this one and see if that does, too,' and in 'ud go the lance again. I tell ye it's the Christian he is!" He stopped abruptly. "How me tongue runs on. 'Talkative McGinnis' is what the disrespectful ones call me—I'll run in after eight and mebbe I'll bleed him a little and give him something'll make him slape like a top till mornin'. Good-bye to yez, for the present," and the kindly, plump little man hurried out with the faint echo of a tune whistling through his lips.

Angela sat down at a little distance from the sickbed and watched the wounded man. His face was drawn with pain. His eyes were closed. But he was not sleeping. His fingers locked and unlocked. His lips moved He opened his eyes and looked at her.

"You need not stay here," he said.

"Would you rather I didn't?" asked Angela, rising.

"Why did you bring me here?"

"To make sure your wounds were attended to."

"Your brother is a landlord—'Kingsnorth—the absentee landlord,' we used to call your father as children. And I'm in his son's house. I'd betther be in jail than here."

"You mustn't think that."

"You've brought me here to humiliate me—to humiliate me!"

"No. To care for you. To protect you."

"Protect me?"

"If I can."

"That's strange."

"I heard you speak to-day."

"You did?"

"I did."

"I'm glad of that."

"So am I."

"Pity your brother wasn't there too."

"It was—a great pity."

"Here's one that Dublin Castle and the English government can't frighten. I'll serve my time in prisons when I'm well enough—it's the first time they've caught me and they had to SHOOT me to do it—and when I come out I'll come straight back here and take up the work just where I'm leaving it."

"You mustn't go to prison."

"It's the lot of every Irishman to-day who says what he thinks."

"It mustn't be yours! It mustn't!" Angela's voice rose in her distress. She repeated: "It mustn't! I'll appeal to my brother to stop it."

"If he's anything like his father it's small heed he'll pay to your pleading. The poor wretches here appealed to old Kingsnorth in famine and sickness—not for HELP, mind ye, just for a little time to pay their rents—and the only answer they ever got from him was 'Pay or go'!"

"I know! I know!" Angela replied. "And many a time when I was a child my mother and I cried over it."

He looked at her curiously. "You and yer mother cried over US?"

"We did. Indeed we did."

"They say the heart of England is in its womenkind. But they have nothing to do with her laws."

"They will have some day."

"It'll be a long time comin', I'm thinkin'. If they take so long to free a whole country how long do ye suppose it'll take them to free a whole sex—and the female one at that?"

"It will come!" she said resolutely.

He looked at her strangely.

"And you cried over Ireland's sorrows?"

"As a child and as a woman," said Angela.

"And ye've gone about here tryin' to help them too, haven't ye?"

"I could do very little"

"Well, the spirit is there—and the heart is there. If they hadn't liked YOU it's the sorry time maybe your brother would have."

He paused again, looking at her intently, whilst his fingers clutched the coverlet convulsively as if to stifle a cry of pain.

"May I ask ye yer name?" he gasped.

"Angela," she said, almost in a whisper.

"Angela," he repeated. "Angela! It's well named ye are. It's the ministering angel ye've been down here—to the people—and—to me."

"Don't talk any more now. Rest"

"REST, is it? With all the throuble in the wurrld beatin' in me brain and throbbin' in me heart?"

"Try and sleep until the doctor comes to-night."

He lay back and closed his eyes.

Angela sat perfectly still.

In a few minutes he opened them again. There was a new light in his eyes and a smile on his lips.

"Ye heard me speak, did ye?"

"Yes."

"Where were ye?"

"Above you, behind a bank of trees."

A playful smile played around his lips as he said: "It was a GOOD speech, wasn't it?"

"I thought it wonderful," Angela answered.

"And what were yer feelings listenin' to a man urgin' the people against yer own country?"

"I felt I wanted to stand beside you and echo everything you said."

"DID you?" and his eyes blazed and his voice rose.

"You spoke as some prophet, speaking in a wilderness of sorrow, trying to bring them comfort."

He smiled whimsically, as he said, in a weary voice:

"I tried to bring them comfort and I got them broken heads and buck-shot."

"It's only through suffering every GREAT cause triumphs," said Angela.

"Then the Irish should triumph some day. They've suffered enough, God knows."

"They will," said Angela eagerly. "Oh, how I wish I'd been born a man to throw in my lot with the weak! to bring comfort to sorrow, freedom to the oppressed: joy to wretchedness. That is your mission. How I envy you. I glory in what the future has in store for you, Live for it! Live for it!"

"I will!" cried O'Connell. "Some day the yoke will be lifted from us. God grant that mine will be the hand to help do it. God grant I am alive to see it done. That day'll be worth living for—to wring recognition from our enemies—to—to—to" he sank back weakly on the pillow, his voice fainting to a whisper.

Angela brought him some water and helped him up while he drank it. She smoothed back the shining hair—red, shot through gold—from his forehead. He thanked her with a look. Suddenly he burst into tears. The strain of the day had snapped his self-control at last. The floodgates were opened. He sobbed and sobbed like some tired, hurt child. Angela tried to comfort him. In a moment she was crying, too. He took her hand and kissed it repeatedly, the tears falling on it as he did so.

"God bless ye! God bless ye!" he cried.

In that moment of self-revelation their hearts went out to each other. Neither had known happiness nor love, nor faith in mankind.

In that one enlightening moment of emotion their hearts were laid bare to each other. The great comedy of life between man and woman had begun.

From that moment their lives were linked together.



CHAPTER VIII

ANGELA IN SORE DISTRESS

Three days afterwards O'Connell was able to dress and move about his room. He was weak from loss of blood and the confinement that an active man resents. But his brain was clear and vivid. They had been three wonderful days.

Angela had made them the most amazing in his life. The memory of those hours spent with her he would carry to his grave.

She read to him and talked to him and lectured him and comforted him. There were times when he thanked the Power that shapes our ends for having given him this one supreme experience. The cadences of her voice would haunt him through the years to come.

And in a little while he must leave it all. He must stand his trial under the "Crimes Act" for speaking at a "Proclaimed" meeting.

Well, whatever his torture he knew he would come out better equipped for the struggle. He had learned something of himself he had so far never dreamed of in his bitter struggle with the handicap of his life. He had something to live for now besides the call of his country—the call of the HEART—the cry of beauty and truth and reverence.

Angela inspired him with all these. In the three days she ministered to him she had opened up a vista he had hitherto never known. And now he had to leave it and face his accusers, and be hectored and jeered at in the mockery they called "trials." From the Court-House he would go to the prison and from thence he would be sent back into the world with the brand of the prison-cell upon him. As the thought of all this passed through his mind, he never wavered. He would face it as he had faced trouble all his life, with body knit for the struggle, and his heart strong for the battle.

And back of it all the yearning that at the end she would be waiting and watching for his return to the conflict for the great "Cause" to which he had dedicated his life.

On the morning of the third day Mr. Roche, the resident magistrate, was sent for by Nathaniel Kingsnorth. Mr. Roche found him firm and determined, his back to the fireplace, in which a bright fire was burning, although the month was July.

"Even the climate of Ireland rebels against the usual laws of nature!" thought Kingsnorth, as he shivered and glanced at the steady, drenching downpour that had lasted, practically, ever since he had set foot in the wretched country.

The magistrate came forward and greeted him respectfully.

"Good morning, Mr. Roche," said Nathaniel, motioning him to sit down by the fire.

"I've sent for you to remove this man O'Connell," added Nathaniel, after a pause.

"Certainly—if he is well enough to be moved."

"The doctor, I understand, says that he is."

"Very well. I'll drive him down to the Court-House. The Court is sitting now," said Roche, rising.

Kingsnorth stopped him with a gesture.

"I want you to understand it was against my express wishes that he was ever brought into this house."

"Miss Kingsnorth told me, when I had arrested him, that you would shelter him and go bail for him, if necessary," said Roche, in some surprise.

"My sister does things under impulse that she often regrets afterwards. This is one. I hope there is no, harm done?"

"None in the world," replied the magistrate. "On the contrary, the people seem to have a much higher opinion of you, Mr. Kingsnorth, since the occurrence," he added.

"Their opinion—good or bad—is a matter of complete indifference to me. I am only anxious that the representatives of the government do not suppose that, because, through mistaken ideas of charity, my sister brought this man to my house, I in any way sanction his attitude and his views!"

"I should not fear that, Mr. Kingsnorth. You have always been regarded as a most loyal subject, sir," answered Roche.

"I am glad. What sentence is he likely to get?"

"It depends largely on his previous record."

"Will it be settled to-day?"

"If the jury bring in a verdict. Sometimes they are out all night on these cases."

"A jury! Good God! A jury of Irishmen to try, an Irishman?"

"They're being trained gradually, sir."

"It should never be left to them in a country like this A judge should have the power of condemning such bare-faced criminals, without trial."

"He'll be condemned," said Roche confidently.

"What jury will convict him if they all sympathise with him? Answer me that?"

"That was one difficulty we had to face at first," Roche answered. "It was hard, indeed, as you say, to get an Irishman convicted by an Irish jury—especially the agitators. But we've changed that. We've made them see that loyalty to the Throne is better than loyalty to a Fenian."

"How have they done it?"

"A little persuasion and some slight coercion, sir."

"I am glad of it. It would be a crime against justice for a man who openly breaks the law not to be punished through being tried before a jury of sympathisers."

"Few of them escape, Mr. Kingsnorth. Dublin Castle found the way. One has to meet craft with craft and opposition with firmness. Under the present government we've succeeded wonderfully." Roche smiled pleasantly as he thought of the many convictions he had been instrumental in procuring himself.

Kingsnorth seemed delighted also.

"Good," he said. "The condition of things here is a disgrace—mind you, I'm not criticising the actions of the officials," he hastened to add.

The magistrate bowed.

Kingsnorth went on:

"But the attitude of the people, their views, their conduct, is deplorable—opeless. I came here to see what I could do for them. I even thought of spending a certain portion of each year here. But from what I've heard it would be a waste of time and money."

"It is discouraging, at first sight, but we'll have a better state of affairs presently. We must first stamp out the agitator. He is the most potent handicap. Next are the priests. They are nearest to the people. The real solution of the Irish difficulty would be to make the whole nation Protestants."

"Could it be done?"

"It would take time—every big movement takes time." Roche paused, looked shrewdly, at Kingsnorth and asked him:

"What do you intend doing with this estate?"

"I am in a quandary. I'm almost determined to put it in the market. Sell it. Be rid of it. It has always been a source of annoyance to our family. However, I'll settle nothing until I return to London. I'll go in a few days—much sooner than I intended. This man being brought into my house has annoyed and upset me."

"I'm sorry," said the magistrate. "Miss Kingsnorth was so insistent and the fellow seemed in a bad way, otherwise I would never have allowed it."

A servant came in response to Kingsnorth's ring and was sent with a message to have the man O'Connell ready to accompany the magistrate as quickly as possible. Over a glass of sherry and a cigar the two men resumed their discussion.

"I wouldn't decide too hastily about disposing of the land. Although there's always a good deal of discontent there is really very little trouble here. In fact, until agitators like O'Connell came amongst us we had everything pretty peaceful. We'll dispose of him in short order."

"Do. Do. Make an example of him."

"Trust us to do that," said Roche. After a moment he added: "To refer again to selling the estate you would get very little for it. It can't depreciate much more, and there is always the chance it may improve. Some of the people are quite willing to work—"

"ARE they? They've not shown any willingness to me."

"Oh, no. They wouldn't."

"What? Not to their landlord?"

"You'd be the LAST they'd show it to. They're strange people in many ways until you get to know them. Now there are many natural resources that might be developed if some capital were put into them."

"My new steward discouraged me about doing that. He said it might be ten years before I got a penny out."

"Your NEW steward?"

"Andrew McPherson."

"The lawyer?"

"Yes"

"He's a hard man, sir."

"The estate needs one."

"Burke understands the people."

"He sympathises with them. I don't want a man like that working for me. I want loyalty to my interests The makeshift policy of Burke during my father's lifetime helped to bring about this pretty state of things. We'll see what firmness will do. New broom. Sweep the place clean. Rid it of slovenly, ungrateful tenants. Clear away the tap-room orators. I have a definite plan in my mind. If I decide NOT to sell I'll perfect my plan in London and begin operations as soon as I'm satisfied it is feasible and can be put upon a proper business basis. There's too much sentiment in Ireland. That's been their ruin. I am going to bring a little common sense into play." Kingsnorth walked restlessly around the room as he spoke. He stopped by the windows and beckoned the magistrate.

"There's your man on the drive. See?" and he pointed to where O'Connell, with a soldier each side of him, was slowly moving down the long avenue.

The door of the room opened and Angela came in hurriedly and went straight to where the two men stood. There was the catch of a sob in her voice as she spoke to the magistrate.

"Are you taking that poor wounded man to prison?"

"The doctor says he is well enough to be moved," replied Roche.

"You've not seen the doctor. I've just questioned him. He told me you had not asked his opinion and that if you move him it will be without his sanction."

Kingsnorth interrupted angrily: "Please don't interfere."

Angela turned on him: "So, it's YOU who are sending him to prison?"

"I am."

Angela appealed to the magistrate.

"Don't do this, I entreat you—don't do it."

"But I have no choice, Miss Kingsnorth."

"The man can scarcely walk," she pleaded.

"He will receive every attention, believe me, Miss Kingsnorth," Roche replied.

Angela faced her brother again.

"If you let that wounded man go from this house to-day you will regret it to the end of your life." Her face was dead-white; her breath was coming thickly; her eyes were fastened in hatred on her brother's face.

"Kindly try and control yourself, Angela," Kingsnorth said sternly. "You should consider my position a little more—"

"YOUR position? And what is HIS? You with EVERYTHING you want in life—that man with NOTHING. He is being hounded to prison for what? Pleading for his country! Is that a crime? He was shot down by soldiers—for what? For showing something we English are always boasting of feeling OURSELVES and resent any other nation feeling it—patriotism!"

"Stop!" commanded Kingsnorth.

"If you take that sick, wretched man out of this house it will be a crime—" began Angela.

Kingsnorth stopped her; he turned to the magistrate: "Kindly take the man away."

Roche moved to the window.

Angela's heart sank. All her pleading was in vain. Her voice faltered and broke:

"Very well. Then take him. Sentence him for doing something his own countrymen will one day build a monument to him for doing. The moment the prison-door closes behind him a thousand voices will cry 'Shame' on you and your government, and a thousand new patriots will be enrolled. And when he comes out from his torture he'll carry on the work of hatred and vengeance against his tyrants. He will fight you to the last ditch. You may torture his BODY, but you cannot break his HEART or wither his spirit. They're beyond you. They're—they're—," she stopped suddenly, as her voice rose to the breaking-point, and left the room.

The magistrate went down the drive. In a few moments O'Connell was on his way to the Court-House, a closely guarded prisoner.

Angela, from her window, watched the men disappear. She buried her face in her hands and moaned as she had not done since her mother left her just a few years before. The girlhood in her was dead. She was a woman. The one great note had come to her, transforming her whole nature—love.

And the man she loved was being carried away to the misery and degradation of a convict.

Gradually the moans died away. The convulsive heaving of her breast subsided. A little later, when her sister Monica came in search of her, she found Angela in a dead faint.

By night she was in a fever.



CHAPTER IX

TWO LETTERS

Dublin, Ireland, Nov. 16th, 18—

Dear Lady of Mercy:

I have served my sentence. I am free. At first the horrible humiliation of my treatment, of my surroundings, of the depths I had to sink to, burned into me. Then the thought of you sustained me. Your gentle voice: your beauty: your pity: your unbounded faith in me strengthened my soul. All the degradation fell from me. They were but ignoble means to a noble end. I was tortured that others might never know sorrow. I was imprisoned that my countrymen might know liberty. And so the load was lighter.

The memory of those three WONDERFUL days was so marvellous, so vivid, that it shone like a star through the blackness of those TERRIBLE days.

You seem to have taken hold of my heart and my soul and my life.

Forgive me for writing this to you, but it seems that you are the only one I've ever known who understands the main-springs of my nature, of my hopes and my ambitions—indeed, of my very thoughts.

To-day I met the leader of my party. He greeted me warmly. At last I have proved myself a worthy follower. They think it best I should leave Ireland for a while. If I take active part at once I shall be arrested again and sent for a longer sentence.

They have offered me the position of one of the speakers In a campaign in America to raise funds for the "Cause." I must first see the Chief in London. He sent a message, writing in the highest terms of my work and expressing a wish to meet me. I wonder if it would be possible to see you in London?

If I am sent to America it would speed my going to speak to you again. If you feel that I ask too much, do not answer this and I will understand.

Out of the fulness of my heart, from the depths of my soul, and with the whole fervour of my being, I ask you to accept all the gratitude of a heart filled to overflowing.

God bless and keep you.

Yours in homage and gratitude, FRANK OWEN O'CONNELL.

London, Nov. 19th, 18—

My dear Mr. O'Connell:

I am glad indeed to have your letter and to know you are free again. I have often thought of your misery during all these months and longed to do something to assuage it. It is only when a friend is in need and all avenues of help are closed to him that a woman realises how helpless she is.

That they have not crushed your spirit does not surprise me. I was as sure of that as I am that the sun is shining to-day. That you do not work actively in Ireland at once is, I am sure, wise. Foolhardiness is not courage.

In a little while the English government may realise how hopeless it is to try and conquer a people who have liberty in their hearts. Then they will abate the rigour of their unjust laws.

When that day comes you must return and take up the mission with renewed strength and hope and stimulated by the added experience of bitter suffering.

I should most certainly like to see you in London. I am staying with a distant connection of the family. We go to the south of France in a few weeks. I have been very ill—another reproach to the weakness of woman. I am almost recovered now but far from strong. I have to lie still all day. My only companions are my books and my thoughts.

Let me know when you expect to arrive in London. Come straight here.

I have so much to tell you, but the words halt as they come to my pen.

Looking forward to seeing you, In all sincerity, ANGELA KINGSNORTH.



CHAPTER X

O'CONNELL VISITS ANGELA IN LONDON

Nathaniel Kingsnorth stayed only, long enough in Ireland to permit of Angela's recovery.

He only went into the sick-room once.

When Angela saw him come into the room she turned her back on him and refused to speak to him.

For a moment a flush of pity for his young sister gave him a pang at his heart. She looked so frail and worn, so desperately ill. After all she was his sister, and again, had she not been punished? He was willing to forget the foolhardy things she had done and the bitter things she had said. Let bygones be bygones. He realised that he had neglected her. He would do so no longer. Far from it. When they returned to London all that would be remedied. He would take care of her in every possible way. He felt a genuine thrill course through him as he thought of his generosity.

To all of this Angela made no answer.

Stung by her silence, he left the room and sent for his other sister. When Monica came he told her that whenever Angela wished to recognise his magnanimity she could send for him. She would not find him unforgiving.

To this Angela sent no reply.

When the fever had passed and she was stronger, arrangements were made for the journey to London.

As Angela walked unsteadily to the carriage, leaning on the arm of the nurse, Nathaniel came forward to assist her. She passed him without a word. Nor did she speak to him once, nor answer any remark of his, during the long journey on the train.

When they reached London she refused to go to the Kingsnorth house, where her brother lived, but went at once to a distant cousin of her mother's—Mrs. Wrexford—and made her home with her, as she had often done before. She refused to hold any further communication with her brother, despite the ministrations of her sister Monica and Mrs. Wrexford.

Mrs. Wrexford was a gentle little white-capped widow whose only happiness in life seemed to be in worrying over others' misfortunes. She was on the board of various charitable organisations and was a busy helper in the field of mercy. She worshipped Angela, as she had her mother before her. That something serious had occurred between Angela and her brother Mrs. Wrexford realised, but she could find out nothing by questioning Angela. Every time she asked her anything relative to her attitude Angela was silent.

One day she begged Mrs. Wrexford never to speak of her brother again. Mrs. Wrexford respected her wishes and watched her and nursed her through her convalescence with a tender solicitude.

When O'Connell's letter came, Angela showed it to Mrs. Wrexford, together with her reply.

"Do you mind if I see him here?" Angela asked.

"What kind of man is he?"

"The kind that heroes are made of."

"He writes so strangely—may, one say unreservedly? Is he a gentleman?"

"In the real meaning of the word—yes."

"Of good family?"

"Not as we estimate goodness. His family were just simple peasants."

"Do you think it wise to see him?"

"I don't consider the wisdom. I only listen to my heart."

"Do you mean that you care for him?"

"I do."

"You—you love him?"

"So much of love as I can give is his."

"Oh, my dear!" cried Mrs. Wrexford, thoroughly alarmed.

"Don't be afraid," said Angela, quietly. "Our ways lie wide apart. He is working for the biggest thing in life. His work IS his life. I am nothing."

"But don't you think it would be indiscreet, dear, to have such a man come here?"

"Why—indiscreet?"

"A man who has been in prison!" and Mrs. Wrexford shuddered at the thought. She had seen and helped so many poor victims of the cruel laws, and the memory of their drawn faces and evil eyes, and coarse speech, flashed across her mind. She could not reconcile one coming into her little home.

Angela answered her:

"Yes, he has been in prison, but the shame was for his persecutors—not for him. Still, if you would rather I saw him somewhere else—"

"Oh no, my dear child. If you wish it—"

"I do. I just want to see him again, as he writes he does me. I want to hear him speak again. I want to wish him 'God-speed' on his journey."

"Very, well, Angela," said the old lady. "As you wish."

A week afterwards O'Connell arrived in London. They met in Mrs. Wrexford's little drawing-room in Mayfair.

They looked at each other for some moments without speaking. Both noted the fresh lines of suffering in each other's faces. They had been through the long valley of the shadow of sorrow since they had last met. But O'Connell thought, as he looked at her, that all the suffering he had gone through passed from him as some hideous dream. It was worth it—these months of torture—just to be looking at her now. Worth the long black nights—the labours in the heat of the day, with life's outcasts around him; the taunts of his gaolers: worth all the infamy of it—just to stand there looking at her.

She had taken his life in her two little hands.

He had bathed his soul all these months in the thought of her. He had prayed night and day that he might see her standing near him just as she was then: see the droop of her eye and the silk of her hair and feel the touch of her hand and hear the exquisite tenderness of her voice.

He stood mute before her.

She held out her hand and said simply

"Thank you for coming."

"It was good of you to let me," he answered hoarsely. "They have not broken your spirit or your courage?"

"No," he replied tensely; "they are the stronger."

"I thought they would be," she said proudly.

All the while he was looking at the pale face and the thin transparency of her hands.

"But you have suffered, too. You have been ill. Were you in—danger?" His voice had a catch of fear in it as he asked the, to him, terrible question.

"No. It was just a fever. It is past. I am a little weak—a little tired. That will pass, too."

"If anything had happened to you—or ever should happen!" He buried his face in his hands and moaned "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!"

His body shook with the sobs he tried vainly to check. Angela put her hand gently on his shoulder.

"Don't do that," she whispered.

He controlled himself with an effort.

"It will be over in a moment. Just a moment. I am sorry."

He suddenly knelt at her feet, his head bowed in reverence. "God help me," he cried faintly, "I love you! I love you!"

She looked down at him, her face transfigured.

He loved her!

The beat of her heart spoke it! "He loves you!" the throbbing of her brain shouted it: "He loves you!" the cry of her soul whispered it: "He loves you!"

She stretched out her hands to him:

"My love is yours, just as yours is mine. Let us join our lives and give them to the suffering and the oppressed."

He looked up at her in wonder.

"I daren't. Think what I am."

"You are the best that is in me. We are mates."

"A peasant! A beggar!"

"You are the noblest of the noble."

"A convict."

"Our Saviour was crucified so that His people should be redeemed. You have given the pain of your body so that your people may be free."

"It wouldn't be fair to you," he pleaded.

"If you leave me it will be unfair to us both."

"Oh, my dear one! My dear one!"

He folded her in his arms:

"I'll give the best of my days to guard you and protect you and bring you happiness."

"I am happy now," and her voice died to a whisper.



CHAPTER XI

KINGSNORTH IN DESPAIR

Three days afterwards Nathaniel Kingsnorth returned late at night from a political banquet.

It had been a great evening. At last it seemed that life was about to give him what he most wished for. His dearest ambitions were, apparently, about to be realised.

He had been called on, as a staunch Conservative, to add his quota to the already wonderful array of brilliant perorations of seasoned statesmen and admirable speakers.

Kingsnorth had excelled himself.

Never had he spoken so powerfully.

Being one of the only men at the banquet who had enjoyed even a brief glimpse of Ireland, he made the solution of the Irish question the main topic of his speech. Speaking lucidly and earnestly, he placed before them his panacea for Irish ills.

His hearers were enthralled.

When he sat down the cheering was prolonged. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, an old friend of his late father, spoke most glowingly to him and of him in his hearing. The junior Whip hinted at his contesting a heat at a coming bye-election in the North of Ireland. A man with his knowledge of Ireland—as he had shown that night—would be invaluable to his party.

When he left the gathering he was in a condition of ecstasy. Lying back, amid the cushions, during his long drive home, he closed his eyes and pictured the future. His imagination ran riot. It took wings and flew from height to height. He saw himself the leader of a party—"The Kingsnorth Party!"—controlling his followers with a hand of iron, and driving them to vote according to his judgment and his decree.

By the time he reached home he had entered the Cabinet and was being spoken of as the probable Prime Minister. But for the sudden stopping of the horses he might have attained that proud distinction.

The pleasant warmth of the entrance hall on this chill November night, greeted him as a benignant welcome. He bummed a tune cheerfully as he climbed the stairs, and was smiling genially when he entered the massive study.

He poured out a liqueur and stood sipping it as he turned over the letters brought by the night's post. One arrested him. It had been delivered by hand, and was marked "Most Urgent." He lit a cigar and tore open the envelope. As he read the letter every vestige of colour left his face. He sank into a chair: the letter slipped from his fingers. All his dreams had vanished in a moment. His house of cards had toppled down. His ambitions were surely and positively destroyed at one stroke. He mechanically picked up the letter and re-read it. Had it been his death-sentence it could not have affected him more cruelly.

"Dear Nathaniel: I scarcely know how to write to you about what has happened. I am afraid I am in some small measure to blame. Ten days ago your sister showed me a letter from a man named O'Connell—[Kingsnorth crushed the letter in his hand as he read the hated name—the name of the man who had caused him so much discomfort during that unfortunate visit to his estate in Ireland. How he blamed himself now for having ever gone there. There was indeed a curse on it for the Kingsnorths. He straightened out the crumpled piece of paper and read on]:—a man named O'Connell—the man she nursed in your house in Ireland after he had been shot by the soldiers. He was coming to England and wished to see her. She asked my permission. I reasoned with her—but she was decided. If I should not permit her to see him in my house she would meet him elsewhere. It seemed better the meeting should be under my roof, so I consented. I bitterly reproach myself now for not acquainting you with the particulars. You might have succeeded in stopping what has happened."

"Your sister and O'Connell were married this morning by special licence and left this afternoon for Liverpool, en route to America."

"I cannot begin to tell you how much I deplore the unfortunate affair. It will always be a lasting sorrow to me. I cannot write any more now. My head is aching with the thought of what it will mean to you. Try not to think too hardly of me and believe me."

"Always your affectionate cousin,"

"Mary Caroline Wrexford."

Kingsnorth's head sank on to his breast. Every bit of life left him. Everything about his feet. Ashes. The laughing-stock of his friends.

Were Angela there at that moment he could have killed her.

The humiliation of it! The degradation of it! Married to that lawless Irish agitator. The man now a member of his family! A cry of misery broke from him, as he realised that the best years of his life were to come and go fruitlessly. His career was ended. Despair lay heavy on his soul.



CHAPTER XII

LOOKING FORWARD

Standing on the main deck of an Atlantic liner stood Angela and O'Connell.

They were facing the future together.

Their faces were turned to the West.

The sun was sinking in a blaze of colour.

Their eyes lighted up with the joy of HOPE.

LOVE was in their hearts.



BOOK II

THE END OF THE ROMANCE

CHAPTER I

ANGELA'S CONFESSION

A year after the events in the preceding book took place O'Connell and his young wife were living in a small; apartment in one of the poorer sections of New York City.

The first few months in America had been glorious ones for them. Their characters and natures unfolded to each other as some wonderful paintings, each taking its own hues from the adoration of the other.

In company with a noted Irish organiser O'Connell had spoken in many of the big cities of the United States and was everywhere hailed as a hero and a martyr to English tyranny.

But he had one ever-present handicap—a drawback he had never felt during the years of struggle preceding his marriage. His means were indeed small. He tried to eke out a little income writing articles for the newspapers and magazines. But the recompense was pitiful. He could not bear, without a pang, to see Angela in the dingy surroundings that he could barely afford to provide for her.

On her part Angela took nothing with her but a few jewels her mother had left her, some clothes and very little money. The money soon disappeared and then one by one the keepsakes of her mother were parted with. But they never lost heart. Through it all they were happy. All the poetry of O'Connell's nature came uppermost, leavened, as it was, by the deep faith and veneration of his wife.

This strangely assorted fervent man and gentle woman seemed to have solved the great mystery of happiness between two people.

But the poverty chafed O'Connell—not for himself, but for the frail, loving, uncomplaining woman who had given her life into his care.

His active brain was continually trying to devise new ways of adding to his meagre income. He multiplied his duties: he worked far into the night when he could find a demand for his articles. But little by little his sources of revenue failed him.

Some fresh and horrible Agrarian crimes in Ireland, for which the Home Rule party were blamed, for a while turned the tide of sympathy against his party. The order was sent out to discontinue meetings for the purpose of collecting funds in America—funds the Irish-Americans had been so cheerfully and plentifully bestowing on the "Cause." O'Connell was recalled to Ireland. His work was highly commended.

Some day they would send him to the United States again as a Special Pleader. At present he would be of greater value at home.

He was instructed to apply to the treasurer of the fund and arrangements would be made for his passage back to Ireland.

He brought the news to Angela with a strange feeling of fear and disappointment. He had built so much on making a wonderful career in the great New World and returning home some day to Ireland with the means of relieving some of her misery and with his wife guarded, as she should be, from the possibility of want. And here was he going back to Ireland as poor as he left it—though richer immeasurably in the love of Angela. She was sitting perfectly still, her eyes on the floor, when he entered the room. He came in so softly that she did not hear him. He lifted her head and looked into her eyes. He noticed with certainty what had been so far only a vague, ill-defined dread. Her face was very, very pale and transparent. Her eyes were sunken and had a strange brilliancy. She was much slighter end far more ethereal than on that day when they stood the deck of the ship and turned their faces so hopefully to the New World.

He felt a knife-like stab startle through his blood to his heart. His breath caught.

Angela looked up at him, radiantly.

He kissed her and with mock cheerfulness he said, laughingly:

"Such news, me darlin'! Such wondherful news!"

"Good news, dear?"

"The best in the wurrld," and he choked a sob.

"I knew it would come! I knew it would. Tell me, dear."

"We're to go back—back to—back to Ireland. See—here are the orders," and he showed her the official letter.

She took it wonderingly and read it. Her hand dropped to her side. Her head drooped into the same position he had found her in. In a moment he was kneeling at her side:

"What is it, dear?"

"We can't go, Frank."

"We can't go? What are ye sayin', dear?"

"We can't go," she repeated, her body crumpled up limply in the chair.

"And why not, Angela? I know I can't take ye back as I brought ye here, dear, if that's what ye mane. The luck's been against me. It's been cruel hard against me. An' that thought is tearin' at me heart this minnit."

"It isn't THAT, Frank," she said, faintly.

"Then what is it?"

"Oh," she cried, "I hoped it would be so different—so very different."

"What did ye think would be so different, dear? Our going back? Is that what's throublin' ye?"

"No, Frank. Not that. I don't care how we go back so long as you are with me." He pressed her hand. In a moment she went on: "But we can't go. We can't go. Oh, my dear, my dear, can't you guess? Can't you think?" She looked imploringly into his eyes.

A new wonder came into his. Could it be true? Could it? He took both her hands and held them tightly and stood up, towering over her, and trembling violently. "Is it—is it—?" he cried and stopped as if afraid to complete the question.

She smiled a wan smile up at him and nodded her head as she answered:

"The union of our lives is to be complete. Our love is to be rewarded."

"A child is coming to us?" he whispered.

"It is," and her voice was hushed, too.

"Praise be to God! Praise be to His Holy Name," and O'Connell clasped his hands in prayer.

In a little while she went on: "It was the telling you I wanted to be so different. I wanted you, when you heard it, to be free of care—happy. And I've waited from day to day hoping for the best—that some good fortune would come to you."

He forced one of his old time, hearty laughs, but there was a hollow ring in it:

"What is that yer sayin' at all? Wait for good fortune? Is there any good fortune like what ye've just told me? Sure I'm ten times the happier man since I came into this room." He put his arm around her and sitting beside her drew her closely to him. "Listen, dear," he said, "listen. We'll go back to the old country. Our child shall be born where we first met. There'll be no danger. No one shall harm us with that little life trembling in the balance—the little precious life. If it's a girl-child she'll be the mother of her people; and if it be a man-child he shall grow up to carry on his father's work. So there—there—me darlin', we'll go back—we'll go back."

She shook her head feebly. "I can't," she said.

"Why not, dear?"

"I didn't want to tell you. But now you make me. Frank, dear, I am ill."

His heart almost stopped. "Ill? Oh, my darlin', what is it? Is it serious? Tell me it isn't serious?" and his voice rang with a note of agony.

"Oh, no, I don't think so. I saw the doctor to-day. He said I must be careful—very careful until—until—our baby is born."

"An' ye kept it all to yerself, me brave one, me dear one. All right. We won't go back. We'll stay here. I'll make them find me work. I'm strong. I'm clever too and crafty, Angela. I'll wring it from this hustling, city. I'll fight it and beat it. Me darlin' shall have everything she wants. My little mother—my precious little mother."

He cradled her in his strong arms and together they sat for hours and the pall of his poverty fell from them and they pictured the future rose-white and crowned with gold—a future in which there were THREE—the trinity one and undivided.

Presently she fell asleep in his arms. He raised his eyes to heaven and prayed God to help him in his hour of striving. He prayed that the little life sleeping so calmly in his arms would be spared him.

"Oh God! answer my prayer, I beseech you," he cried. Angela smiled contentedly in her sleep and spoke his same. It seemed to O'Connell as if his prayer had been heard and answered. He gathered the slight form up in, his arms and carried her to her room and sat by her until dawn.

It was the first night for many weeks that she had slept through till morning without starting out of her sleep in pain. This night she slumbered like a child and a smile played on her lips as though her dreams were happy ones.



CHAPTER II

A COMMUNICATION FROM NATHANIEL KINGSNORTH

The months that followed were the hardest in O'Connell's life. Strive as he would he could find no really remunerative employment. He had no special training. He knew no trade. His pen, though fluent, was not cultured and lacked the glow of eloquence he had when speaking. He worked in shops and in factories. He tried to report on newspapers. But his lack of experience everywhere handicapped him. What he contrived to earn during those months of struggle was all too little as the time approached for the great event.

Angela was now entirely confined to her bed. She seemed to grow more spirit-like every day. A terrible dread haunted O'Connell waking and sleeping. He would start out of some terrible dream at night and listen to her breathing. When he would hurry back at the close of some long, disappointing day his heart would be hammering dully with fear for his loved one.

As the months wore on his face became lined with care, and the bright gold of his hair dimmed with streaks of silver. But he never faltered or lost courage. He always felt he must win the fight now for existence as he meant to win the greater conflict later—for liberty.

Angela, lying so still, through the long days, could only hope. She felt so helpless. It was woman's weakness that brought men like O'Connell to the edge of despair. And hers was not merely bodily weakness but the mare poignant one of PRIDE. Was it fair to her husband? Was it just? In England she had prosperous relatives. They would not let her die in her misery. They could not let her baby come into the world with poverty as its only inheritance. Till now she had been unable to master her feeling of hatred and bitterness for her brother Nathaniel; her intense dislike and contempt for her sister Monica. From the time she left England she had not written to either of them. Could she now? Something decided her.

One night O'Connell came back disheartened. Try as he would, he could not conceal it. He was getting to the end of his courage. There was insufficient work at the shop he had been working in for several weeks. He had been told he need not come again.

Angela, lying motionless and white, tried to comfort him and give him heart.

She made up her mind that night. The next day she wrote to her brother.

She could not bring herself to express one regret for what she had done or said. On the contrary she made many references to her happiness with the man she loved. She did write of the hardships they were passing through. But they were only temporary. O'Connell was so clever—so brilliant—he must win in the end. Only just now she was ill. She needed help. She asked no gift—a loan—merely. They would pay it back when the days of plenty came. She would not ask even this were it not that she was not only ill, but the one great wonderful thing in the world was to be vouchsafed her—motherhood. In the name of her unborn baby she begged him to send an immediate response.

She asked a neighbour to post the letter so that O'Connell would not know of her sacrifice. She waited anxiously for a reply.

Some considerable time afterwards—on the eve of her travail and when things with O'Connell were at their worst—the answer came by cable.

She was alone when it came.

Her heart beat furiously as she opened it. Even if he only sent a little it would be so welcome now when they were almost at the end. If he had been generous how wonderful it would be for her to help the man to whom nothing was too much to give her. The fact that her brother had cabled strengthened the belief that he had hastened to come to her rescue. She opened the cable and read it. Then she fell back on the pillow with a low, faint moan.

When, hours later, O'Connell returned from a vain search for work he found her senseless, with the cable in her fingers. He tried to recover her without success. He sent a neighbour for a doctor. As he watched the worn, patient face, his heart full to bursting, the thought flashed through him—what could have happened to cause this collapse? He became conscious of the cable he had found tightly clasped in her hand. He picked it up and read it. It was very brief:

You have made your bed, lie in it.

Nathaniel Kingsnorth.

was all it said.



CHAPTER III

THE BIRTH OF PEG

Toward morning the doctor placed a little mite of humanity in O'Connell's arms. He looked down at it in a stupor. It had really come to pass. Their child—Angela's and his! A little baby-girl. The tiny wail from this child, born of love and in sorrow, seemed to waken his dull senses. He pressed the mite to him as the hot tears flowed down his cheeks. A woman in one of the adjoining flats who had kindly offered to help took the child away from him. The doctor led him to the bedside. He looked down at his loved one. A glaze was over Angela's eyes as she looked up at him. She tried to smile. All her suffering was forgotten. She knew only pride and love. She was at peace. She raised her hand, thin and transparent now, to O'Connell. He pressed it to his lips.

She whispered:

"My baby. Bring me—my baby."

He took it from the woman and placed it in Angela's weak arms. She kissed it again and again. The child wailed pitifully. The effort had been too much for Angela's failing strength. Consciousness left her.

. . . . . . .

Just before sunrise she woke. O'Connell was sitting beside her. He had never moved. The infant was sleeping on some blankets on the couch—the woman watching her.

Angela motioned her husband to bend near to her. Her eyes shone with unearthly brightness. He put his ear near her lips. Her voice was very, very faint.

"Take—care—of—our—baby—Frank. I'm—I'm—leaving you. God—help—you—and—keep—you—and bless you—for—your—love—of me."

She paused to take breath—then she whispered her leave-taking. The words never left O'Connell's memory for all the days of all the years that followed.

"My—last—words—dear—the—last—I'll—ever—speak—to—you. I—I—love—you—with—all—my heart—and—my soul—HUSBAND! Good—good-bye—Frank." She slipped from his arms and lay, lips parted, eyes open, body still.

The struggle was over. She had gone where there are no petty treacheries, no mean brutalities—where all stand alike before the Throne to render an account of their stewardship.

The brave, gentle little heart was stilled forever.



BOOK III

PEG

CHAPTER I

PEG'S CHILDHOOD

And now Peg appears for the first time, and brings her radiant presence, her roguish smile, her big, frank, soulful, blue eyes, her dazzling red hair, her direct, honest and outspoken truth: her love of all that is clean and pure and beautiful—Peg enters our pages and turns what was a history of romance and drama into a Comedy, of Youth.

Peg—pure as a mountain lily, sweet as a fragrant rose, haunting as an old melody—Peg o' our Hearts comes into our story, even as she entered her father's life, as the Saviour of these pages, even as she was the means of saving O'Connell.

And she did save her father.

It was the presence and the thought of the little motherless baby that kept O'Connell's hand from destroying himself when his reason almost left him after his wife's death. The memories of the days immediately following the passing of Angela are too painful to dwell upon. They are past. They are sacred in O'Connell's heart. They will be to the historian. Thanks to some kindly Irishmen who heard of O'Connell's plight he borrowed enough money to bury his dead wife and place a tablet to her memory.

He sent a message to Kingsnorth telling him of his sister's death. He neither expected nor did he receive an answer.

As soon as it was possible he returned to Ireland and threw himself once again heart and soul into working for the "Cause." He realised his only hope of keeping his balance was to work. He went back to the little village he was born in and it was Father Cahill's hands that poured the baptismal waters on O'Connell's and Angela's baby and it was Father Cahill's voice that read the baptismal service.

She was christened Margaret.

Angela, one night, when it was nearing her time, begged him if it were a girl to christen her Margaret after her mother, since all the best in Angela came from her mother.

O'Connell would have liked to have named the mite "Angela." But his dead wife's wishes were paramount So Margaret the baby was christened. It was too distinguished a name and too long for such a little bundle of pink and white humanity. It did not seem to fit her. So, "Peg" she was named and "Peg" she remained for the rest of her life.

When she was old enough to go with him O'Connell took Peg everywhere. He seemed to bear a charmed life when she was with him.

Peg's earliest memories are of the village where she was baptised and where her father was born. Her little will was law to everyone who came in contact with her. She ruled her little court with a hand of iron.

Many were the dire predictions of the rod O'Connell was making for his own back in giving the little mite her own way in everything.

But O'Connell's only happiness was in Peg and he neither heard nor cared about any criticism that may have been levelled at him for his fond, and, perhaps, foolish care of her.

Looming large in Peg's memories in after life are her father showing her St. Kernan's Hill, and pointing out the mount on which he stood and spoke that day, whilst her mother, hidden by that dense mass of trees, saw every movement and heard every word. From there he took her to "The Gap" and pointed out the windows of the room in which he was nursed for those three blessed days.

It eased his mind to talk to the child of Angela and always he pictured her as the poet writes in verse of the passion of his life: as the painter puts on canvas the features that make life worth the living for him.

Those memories were very clear in little Peg's mind.

Then somehow her childish thoughts all seemed to run to Home Rule—to love of Ireland and hatred of England—to thinking all that was good of Irishmen and all that was bad of Englishmen.

"Why do yez hate the English so much, father?" she asked O'Connell once, looking up at him with a puzzled look in her big blue eyes, and the most adorable brogue coming fresh from her tongue.

"Why do yez hate them?" she repeated.

"I've good cause to, Peg me darlin'," he answered, and a deep frown gathered on his brow.

"Sure wasn't me mother English?" Peg asked.

"She was."

"Then WHY do yez hate the English?"

"It 'ud take a long time to tell ye that, Peggy. Some day I will. There's many a reason why the Irish hate the English, and many a good reason too. But there's one why you and I should hate them, and hate them with all the bittherness that's in us."

"And what is it?" said Peg curiously.

"I'll tell ye. When yer mother and I were almost starvin', and she lyin' on a bed of sickness, she wrote to an Englishman and asked him to assist her. An' this is the reply she got: 'Ye've made yer bed; lie in it.' That was the answer she got the day before you were born, and she died givin' ye life. And by the same token the man that wrote that shameful message to a dyin' woman was her own brother."

"Her own brother, yer tellin' me?" asked Peg wrathfully.

"I am, Peg. Her own brother, I'm tellin' ye."

"It's bad luck that man'll have all his life!" said Peg fiercely. "To write me mother that—and she dyin'! Faith I'd like to see him some day—just meet him—and tell him—" she stopped, her little fingers clenched into a miniature fist. The hot colour was in her cheeks and she stamped her small foot in actual rage. "I'd like to meet him some day," she muttered.

"I hope ye never will, Peg," said her father solemnly. "And," he added, "don't let us ever talk of it again, me darlin'!"

And she never did. But she often thought of the incident and the memory of that brutal message was stamped vividly on her little brain.

The greatest excitements of her young life were going with her father to hear him speak. She made the most extraordinary collection of scraps of the speeches she had heard her father make for Home Rule. While he would be speaking she would listen intently, her lips apart, her little body tense with excitement, her little heart beating like a trip-hammer.

When they applauded him she would laugh gleefully and clap her little hands together: if they interrupted him she would turn savagely upon them. She became known all over the countryside as "O'Connell's Peg."

"Sure O'Connell's not the same man at all, at all, since he came back with that little bit of a red-headed child," said a man to Father Cahill one day.

"God is good, Flaherty," replied the priest. "He sent O'Connell a baby to take him up nearer to Himself. Ye're right. He's NOT the same man. It's the good Catholic he is again as he was as a boy. An' it's I'm thankful for that same."

Father Cahill smiled happily. He was much older, but though the figure was a little bent and the hair thinner, and the remainder of it snow-white, the same sturdy spirit was in the old man.

"They're like boy and girl together, that's what they are," said Flaherty with a tone of regret in his voice. "He seems as much of a child as she is when he's with her," he added.

"Every good man has somethin' of the child left in him, me son. O'Connell was goin' in the way of darkness until a woman's hand guided him and gave him that little baby to hold on to his heart strings."

"Sure Peg's the light o' his life, that's what she is," grumbled Flaherty. "It's small chance we ever have of broken heads an' soldiers firin' on us, an' all, through O'Connell, since that child's laid hands on him." Flaherty sighed. "Them was grand days and all," he said.

"They were wicked days, Flaherty," said the priest severely; "and it's surprised I am that a God-fearin' man like yerself should wish them back."

"There are times when I do, Father, the Lord forgive me. A fight lets the bad blood out of ye. Sure it was a pike or a gun O'Connell 'ud shouldher in the ould days, and no one to say him nay, and we all following him like the Colonel of a regiment—an' proud to do it, too. But now it's only the soft words we get from him."

"A child's hand shall guide," said the priest. Then he added:

"It has guided him. Whenever ye get them wicked thoughts about shouldherin' a gun and flashin' a pike, come round to confession, Flaherty, and it's the good penance I'll give ye to dhrive the devil's temptation away from ye."

"I will that, Father Cahill," said Flaherty, hurriedly, and the men went their different ways.

O'Connell did everything for Peg since she was an infant. His were the only hands to tend the little body, to wash her and dress her, and tie up her little shoe-laces, and sit beside her in her childish sicknesses. He taught her to read and to write and to pray. As she grew bigger he taught her the little he knew of music and the great deal he knew of poetry. He instilled a love of verse into her little mind. He never tired of reading her Tom Moore and teaching her his melodies. He would make her learn them and she would stand up solemnly and recite or sing them, her quaint little brogue giving them an added music. O'Connell and Peg were inseparable.

One wonderful year came to Peg when she was about fourteen.

O'Connell had become recognised as a masterly exponent of the particular form of Land Act that would most benefit Ireland.

It was proposed that he should lecture right through the country, wherever they would let him, and awaken amongst the more violent Irish, the recognition that legislative means were surer of securing the end in view, than the more violent ones of fifteen years before.

The brutality of the Coercion Act had been moderated and already the agricultural and dairy produce of the country had developed so remarkably that the terrible misery of by-gone days, when the potato-crop would fail, had been practically eliminated, or at least in many districts mitigated.

O'Connell accepted the proposition.

Through the country he went speaking in every village he passed through, and sometimes giving several lectures in the big cities. His mode of travelling was in a cart. He would speak from the back of it, Peg sitting at his feet, now watching him, again looking eagerly and intently at the strange faces before her.

They were marvellous days, travelling, sometimes, under a golden sun through the glistening fields: or pushing on at night under a great green-and-white moon. Peg would sit beside her father as he drove and he would tell her little folk-stories, or sing wild snatches of songs of the days of the Rebellion; or quote lines ringing with the great Irish confidence in the triumph of Justice:

"Lo the path we tread By our martyred dead Has been trodden 'mid bane and blessing, But unconquered still Is the steadfast will And the faith they died confessing."

Or at night he would croon from Moore:

"When the drowsy world is dreaming, love, Then awake—the heavens look bright, my dear, 'Tis never too late for delight, my dear, And the best of all ways To lengthen our days Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear!"

When storms would come she would cower down in the bottom of the cart and cry and pray. Storms terrified her. It seemed as if all the anger of the heavens were levelled at her. She would cry and moan pitifully whilst O'Connell would try to soothe her and tell her that neither God nor man would harm her—no one would touch his "Peg o' my Heart."

After one of those scenes he would sit and brood. Angela had always been afraid of storms, and in the child's terror his beloved wife would rise up before him and the big tears would drop silently down his cheeks.

Peg crept out once when the storm had cleared and the sky was bright with stars. Her father did not hear her. His thoughts were bridging over the years and once more Angela was beside him.

Peg touched him timidly and peered up into his face. She thought his cheeks were wet. But that could not be. She had never seen her father cry.

"What are ye thinkin' about, father?" she whispered. His voice broke. He did not want her to see his emotion. He answered with a half-laugh, half-sob:

"Thinkin' about, is it? It's ashamed I am of ye to be frightened by a few little flashes of lightnin' and the beautiful, grand thundher that always kapes it company. It's ashamed I am of ye—that's what I am!" He spoke almost roughly to hide his emotion and he furtively wiped the tears from his face so that she should not see them.

"It's not the lightnin' I'm afraid of, father," said Peg solemnly. "It's the thundher. It shrivels me up, that's what it does."

"The thundher, is it? Sure that's only the bluff the storm puts up when the rale harm is done by the lightnin's flash. There is no harm in the thundher at all. And remember, after all, it's the will of God."

Peg thought a moment:

"It always sounds just as if He were lookin' down at us and firin' off cannons at us because He's angry with us."

O'Connell said nothing. Presently he felt her small hand creep into his:

"Father," said Peg; "are yez ralely ashamed of me when I'm frightened like that?"

O'Connell was afraid to unbend lest he broke down altogether. So he continued in a voice of mock severity:

"I am that—when ye cry and moan about what God has been good enough to send us."

"Is it a coward I am for bein' afraid, father?" said Peg, her lips quivering.

"That's what ye are, Peg," replied O'Connell with Spartan severity.

"Then I'll never be one again, father! Never again," and her eyes filled up.

He suddenly took her in his arms and pressed her to him and rocked her as though she were still a baby, and his voice trembled and was full of pity as he said:

"Ye can't help it, acushla. Ye can't help it. Ye're NOT a coward, my own brave little Peg. It's yer mother in ye. She could never bear a thunder-storm without fear, and she was the bravest woman that ever lived Bad luck to me for sayin' a cross word to ye."

Suddenly poor little Peg burst out crying and buried her face on her father's breast and sobbed and sobbed as though her heart would break.

"Ssh! Ssh! There—there, me darlin'," cried O'Connell, now thoroughly alarmed at the depth of feeling the child had loosened from her pent-up emotion, "ye mustn't cry—ye mustn't. See it's laughin' I am! Laughin', that's what I'm doin'."

And he laughed loudly while his heart ached, and he told her stories until she forgot her tears and laughed too. And that night as he watched her fall off to sleep he knelt down in the straw and prayed:

"Oh, kape her always like she is now—always just a sweet, innocent, pure little creature. Kape the mother in her always, dear Lord, so that she may grow in Your likeness and join my poor, dear Angela in the end. Amen."

Those were indeed glorious days for Peg. She never forgot them in after life.

Waking in the freshness of the early morning, making their frugal breakfast, feeding the faithful old horse and then starting off through the emerald green for another new and wonderful day, to spread the light of the "Cause."

O'Connell had changed very much since the days of St. Kernan's Hill. As was foreshadowed earlier, he no longer urged violence. He had come under the influence of the more temperate men of the party, and was content to win by legislative means, what Ireland had failed to accomplish wholly by conflict. Although no one recognised more thoroughly than O'Connell what a large part the determined attitude of the Irish party, in resisting the English laws, depriving them of the right of free speech, and of meeting to spread light amongst the ignorant, had played in wringing some measure of recognition and of tolerance from the bitter narrowness of the English ministers.

What changed O'Connell more particularly was the action of a band of so-called "Patriots" who operated in many parts of Ireland—maiming cattle, ruining crops, injuring peaceable farmers, who did not do their bidding and shooting at landlords and prominent people connected with the government.

Crime is not a means to honourable victory and O'Connell was ashamed of the miscreants who blackened the fair name of his country by their ruthless and despicable methods.

He avoided the possibility of imprisonment again for the sake of Peg. What would befall her if he were taken from her?

The continual thought that preyed upon him was that he would have nothing to leave her when his call came. Do what he would he could make but little money—and when he had a small surplus he would spend it on Peg—a shawl to keep her warm, or a ribbon to give a gleam of colour to the drab little clothes.

On great occasions he would buy her a new dress, and then Peg was the proudest little child in the whole of Ireland.

Every year, on the anniversary of her mother's death, O'Connell had a Mass said for the repose of Angela's soul, and he would kneel beside Peg through the service, and be silent for the rest of the day. One year he had candles, blessed by the Archbishop, lit on our Lady's altar and he stayed long after the service was over. He sent Peg home. But, although Peg obeyed him, partially, by leaving the church, she kept watch outside until her father came out. He was wiping his eyes as he saw her. He pretended to be very angry.

"Didn't I tell ye to go home?"

"Ye did, father."

"Then why didn't ye obey me?"

"Sure an' what would I be doin' at home, all alone, without you? Don't be cross with me, father."

He took her hand and they walked home in silence. He had been crying and Peg could not understand it. She had never seen him do such a thing before and it worried her. It did not seem right that a MAN should cry. It seemed a weakness—and that her father, of all men, should do it—he who was not afraid of anything nor anyone—it was wholly unaccountable to her.

When they reached home Peg busied herself about her father, trying to make him comfortable, furtively watching him all the while. When she had put him in an easy chair, and brought him his slippers, and built up the fire, she sat down on a little stool by his side. After a long silence she stroked the back of his hand and then gave him a little tug. He looked down at her.

"What is it, Peg?"

"Was my mother very beautiful, father?"

"The most beautiful woman that ever lived in all the wurrld, Peg."

"She looks beautiful in the picture ye have of her."

From the inside pocket of his coat he drew out a little beautifully-painted miniature. The frame had long since been worn and frayed. O'Connell looked at the face and his eyes shone:

"The man that painted it couldn't put the soul of her into it. That he couldn't. Not the soul of her."

"Am I like her, at all, father?" asked Peg wistfully.

"Sometimes ye are, dear: very like."

After a little pause Peg said:

"Ye loved her very much, father, didn't ye?"

He nodded. "I loved her with all the heart of me and all the strength of me."

Peg sat quiet for some minutes: then she asked him a question very quietly and hung in suspense on his answer:

"Do ye love me as much as ye loved her, father?"

"It's different, Peg—quite, quite different."

"Why is it?" She waited He did not answer.

"Sure, love is love whether ye feel it for a woman or a child," she persisted.

O'Connell remained silent.

"Did ye love her betther than ye love me, father?"

Her soul was in her great blue eyes as she waited excitedly for the answer to that, to her, momentous question.

"Why do ye ask me that?" said O'Connell.

"Because I always feel a little sharp pain right through my heart whenever ye talk about me mother. Ye see, father, I've thought all these years that I was the one ye really loved—"

"Ye're the only one I have in the wurrld, Peg."

"And ye don't love her memory betther than ye do me?"

O'Connell put both of his arms around her.

"Yer mother is with the Saints, Peg, and here are you by me side. Sure there's room in me heart for the memory of her and the love of you."

She breathed a little sigh of satisfaction and nestled onto her father's shoulder. The little fit of childish jealousy of her dead mother's place in her father's heart passed.

She wanted no one to share her father's affection with her. She gave him all of hers. She needed all of his.

When Peg was eighteen years old and they were living in Dublin, O'Connell was offered quite a good position in New York. It appealed to him. The additional money would make things easier for Peg. She was almost a woman now, and he wanted her to get the finishing touches of education that would prepare her for a position in the world if she met the man she felt she could marry. Whenever he would speak of marriage Peg would laugh scornfully:

"Who would I be of AFTHER marryin' I'd like to know? Where in the wurrld would I find a man like you?"

And no coaxing would make her carry on the discussion or consider its possibility.

It still harassed him to think he had so little to leave her if anything happened to him. The offer to go to America seemed providential. Her mother was buried there. He would take Peg to her grave.

Peg grew very thoughtful at the idea of leaving Ireland. All her little likes and dislikes—her impulsive affections and hot hatreds were all bound up in that country. She dreaded the prospect of meeting a number of new people.

Still it was for her father's good, so she turned a brave face to it and said:

"Sure it is the finest thing in the wurrld for both of us."

But the night before they left Ireland she sat by the little window in her bed-room until daylight looking back through all the years of her short life.

It seemed as if she were cutting off all that beautiful golden period. She would never again know the free, careless, happy-go-lucky, living-from-day-to-day existence, that she had loved so much.

It was a pale, wistful, tired little Peg that joined her father at breakfast next morning.

His heart was heavy, too. But he laughed and joked and sang and said how glad they ought to be—going to that wonderful new country, and by the way the country Peg was born in, too! And then he laughed again and said how FINE SHE looked and how WELL HE felt and that it seemed as if it were God's hand in it all. And Peg pretended to cheer up, and they acted their parts right to the end—until the last line of land disappeared and they were headed for America. Then they separated and went to their little cabins to think of all that had been. And every day they kept up the little deception with each other until they reached America.

They were cheerless days at first for O'Connell. Everything reminded him of his first landing twenty years before with his young wife—both so full of hope, with the future stretching out like some wonderful panorama before them. He returns twenty years older to begin the fight again—this time for his daughter.

His wife was buried at a little Catholic cemetery a few miles outside New York City. There he took Peg one day and they put flowers on the little mound of earth and knelt awhile in prayer. Beneath that earth lay not only his wife's remains, but O'Connell's early hopes and ambitions were buried with her.

Neither spoke either going to or returning from the cemetery. O'Connell's heart was too full. Peg knew what was passing through his mind and sat with her hands folded in her lap—silent. But her little brain was busy thinking back.

Peg had much to think of during the early days following her arrival in New York. At first the city awed her with its huge buildings and ceaseless whirl of activity and noise. She longed to be back in her own little green, beautiful country.

O'Connell was away during those first days until late apt night.

He found a school for Peg. She did not want to go to it, but just to please her father she agreed. She lasted in it just one week. They laughed at her brogue and teased and tormented her for her absolute lack of knowledge. Peg put up with that just as long as she could. Then one day she opened out on them and astonished them. They could not have been more amazed had a bomb exploded in their midst. The little, timid-looking, open-eyed, Titian-haired girl was a veritable virago. She attacked and belittled, and mimicked and berated them. They had talked of her BROGUE! They should listen to their own nasal utterances, that sounded as if they were speaking with their noses and not with their tongues! Even the teacher did not go unscathed. She came in for an onslaught, too. That closed Peg's career as a New York student.

Her father arranged his work so that he could be with her at certain periods of the day, and outlined her studies from his own slender stock of knowledge. He even hired a little piano for her and followed up what he had begun years before in Ireland—imbuing her with a thorough acquaintance with Moore and his delightful melodies.

One wonderful day they had an addition to their small family. A little, wiry-haired, scrubby, melancholy Irish terrier followed O'Connell for miles. He tried to drive him away. The dog would turn and run for a few seconds and the moment O'Connell would take his eyes off him he would run along and catch him up and wag his over-long tail and look up at O'Connell with his sad eyes. The dog followed him all the way home and when O'Connell opened the door he ran in. O'Connell Had not the heart to turn him out, so he poured out some milk and broke up some dry biscuits for him and then played with him until Peg came home. She liked the little dog at once and then and there O'Connell adopted him and gave him to Peg. He said the dog's face had a look of Michael Quinlan, the Fenian. So "Michael" he was named and he took his place in the little home. He became Peg's boon companion. They romped together like children, and they talked to each other and understood each other. "Michael" had an eloquent tail, an expressive bark and a pair of eyes that told more than speech.

The days flowed quietly on, O'Connell apparently satisfied with his lot. But to Peg's sharp eye all was not well with him. There was a settled melancholy about him whenever she surprised him thinking alone. She thought he was fretting for Ireland and their happy days together and so said nothing.

He was really worrying over Peg's future. He had such a small amount of money put by, and working on a salary it would be long before he could save enough to leave Peg sufficient to carry her on for a while if "anything happened." There was always that "if anything happened!" running in his mind.

One day the chance of solving the whole difficulty of Peg's future was placed in his hands. But the means were so distasteful to him that he hesitated about even telling her.

He came in unexpectedly in the early afternoon of that day and found a letter waiting for him with an English postmark. Peg had eyed it curiously off and on for hours. She had turned it over and over in her fingers and looked at the curious, angular writing, and felt a little cold shiver run up and down her as she found herself wondering who could be writing to her father from England.

When O'Connell walked in and picked the letter up she watched him excitedly. She felt, for some strange reason, that they were going to reach a crisis in their lives when the seal was broken and the contents disclosed. Superstition was strong—in Peg, and all that day she had been nervous without reason, and excited without cause.

O'Connell read the letter through twice—slowly the first time, quickly the second. A look of bewilderment came across his face as he sat down and stared at the letter in his hand.

"Who is it from, at all?" asked Peg very quietly, though she was trembling all through her body.

Her father said nothing.

Presently he read it through again.

"It's from England, father, isn't it?" queried Peg, pale as a ghost.

"Yes, Peg," answered her father and his voice sounded hollow and spiritless.

"I didn't know ye had friends in England?" said Peg, eyeing the letter.

"I haven't," replied her father.

"Then who is it from?" insisted Peg, now all impatience and with a strange fear tugging at her heart.

O'Connell looked up at her as she stood there staring down at him, her big eyes wide open and her lips parted. He took both of her hands in one of his and held them all crushed together for what seemed to Peg to be a long, long while. She hardly breathed. She knew something was going to happen to them both.

At last O'Connell spoke and his voice trembled and broke:

"Peg, do ye remember one mornin', years and years ago, when I was goin' to speak in County Mayo, an' we started in the cart at dawn, an' we thravelled for miles and miles an' we came to a great big crossing where the roads divided an' there was no sign post an' we asked each other which one we should take an' we couldn't make up our minds an' I left it to you an' ye picked a road an' it brought us out safe and thrue at the spot we were making for? Do you remember it, Peg?"

"Faith I do, father. I remember it well. Ye called me yer little guide and said ye'd follow my road the rest of yer life. An' it's many's the laugh we had when I'd take ye wrong sometimes afterwards." She paused. "What makes ye think of that just now, father?"

He did not answer.

"Is it on account o' that letther?" she persisted.

"It is, Peg." He spoke with difficulty as if the words hurt him to speak. "We've got to a great big crossin'-place again where the roads branch off an' I don't know which one to take."

"Are ye goin' to lave it to me again, father?" said Peg.

"That's what I can't make up me mind about, dear—for it may be that ye'll go down one road and me down the other."

"No, father," Peg cried passionately, "that we won't. Whatever the road we'll thravel it together."

"I'll think it out by meself, Peg. Lave me for a while—alone. I want to think it out by meself—alone."

"If it's separation ye're thinkin' of, make up yer mind to one thing—that I'LL never lave YOU. Never."

"Take 'MICHAEL' out for a spell and come back in half an hour and in the meanwhile I'll bate it all out in me mind."

She bent down and straightened the furrows in his forehead with the tips of her fingers, and kissed him and then whistled to the wistful "MICHAEL" and together they went running down the street toward the little patch of green where the children played, and amongst whom "MICHAEL" was a prime favourite.

Sitting, his head in his hands, his eyes staring into the past, O'Connell was facing the second great tragedy of his life.



CHAPTER II

WE MEET AN OLD FRIEND AFTER MANY YEARS

While O'Connell sat there in that little room in New York trying to decide Peg's fate, a man, who had played some considerable part in O'Connell's life, lay, in a splendidly furnished room in a mansion in the West End of London—dying.

Nathaniel Kingsnorth's twenty years of loneliness and desolation were coming to an end. What an empty, arid stretch of time those years seemed to him as he feebly looked back on them!

After the tragedy of his sister's reckless marriage he deserted public life entirely and shut himself away in his country-house—except for a few weeks in London occasionally when his presence was required on one or other of the Boards of which he was a director.

The Irish estate—which brought about all his misfortunes—he disposed of at a ridiculously low figure. He said he would accept any bid, however small, so that he could sever all connection with the hated village.

From the day of Angela's elopement he neither saw nor wrote to any member of his family.

His other sister, Mrs. Chichester, wrote to him from time to time—telling him one time of the birth of a boy: two years later of the advent of a girl.

Kingsnorth did not answer any of her letters.

In no way dismayed, Mrs. Chichester continued to write periodically. She wrote him when her son Alaric went to school and also when he went to college. Alaric seemed to absorb most of her interest. He was evidently her favourite child. She wrote more seldom of her daughter Ethel, and when she did happen to refer to her she dwelt principally on her beauty and her accomplishments. Five years before, an envelope in deep mourning came to Kingsnorth, and on opening it he found a letter from his sister acquainting him with the melancholy news that Mr. Chichester had ended a life of usefulness at the English bar and had died, leaving the family quite comfortably off.

Kingsnorth telegraphed his condolences and left instructions for a suitable wreath to be sent to the funeral. But he did not attend it. Nor did he at any time express the slightest wish to see his sister nor did he encourage any suggestion on her part to visit him.

When he was stricken with an illness, from which no hope of recovery was held out to him, he at once began to put his affairs in order, and his lawyer spent days with him drawing up statements of his last wishes for the disposition of his fortune.

With death stretching out its hand to snatch him from a life he had enjoyed so little, his thoughts, coloured with the fancies of a tired, sick brain, kept turning constantly, to his dead sister Angela.

From time to time down through the years he had a softened, gentle remembrance of her. When the news of her death came, furious and unrelenting as he had been toward her, her passing softened it. Had he known in time he would have insisted on her burial in the Kingsnorth vault. But she had already been interred in New York before the news of her death reached him.

The one bitter hatred of his life had been against the man who had taken his sister in marriage and in so doing had killed all possibility of Kingsnorth succeeding in his political and social aspirations.

He heard vaguely of a daughter.

He took no interest in the news.

Now, however, the remembrance of his treatment of Angela burnt into him. He especially repented of that merciless cable: "You have made your bed; lie in it." It haunted him through the long hours of his slow and painful illness. Had he helped her she might have been alive to-day, and those bitter reflections that ate into him night and day might have been replaced by gentler ones and so make his end the more peaceful.

He thought of Angela's child and wondered if she were like his poor dead sister. The wish to see the child became an obsession with him.

One morning, after a restless, feverish night, he sent for his lawyer and told him to at once institute inquiries—find out if the child was still living, and if so—where.

This his lawyer did. He located O'Connell in New York, through a friend of his in the Irish party, and found that the child was living with him in rather poor circumstances. He communicated the result of his inquiries to Kingsnorth. That day a letter was sent to O'Connell asking him to allow his child to visit her dying uncle. O'Connell was to cable at Kingsnorth's expense and if he would consent the money for the expenses of the journey would be cabled immediately. The girl was to start at once, as Mr. Kingsnorth had very little longer to live.

When the letter had gone Kingsnorth drew a breath of relief. He longed to see the child. He would have to wait impatiently for the reply. Perhaps the man whom he had hated all his life would refuse his request. If he did, well, he would make some provision in his will for her—in memory of his dead sister.