'Myself!'

'Inestimable boon, doubtless; but what of fortune--position or place in life?'

'The first Napoleon used to say that the "power of the unknown number was incommensurable"; and so I don't despair of showing her that a man like myself may be anything.'

d.i.c.k shook his head doubtingly, and the other went on: 'In this round game we call life it is all "brag." The fellow with the worst card in the pack, if he'll only risk his head on it, keep a bold face to the world and his own counsel, will be sure to win. Bear in mind, d.i.c.k, that for some time back I have been keeping the company of these great swells who sit highest in the Synagogue, and dictate to us small Publicans. I have listened to their hesitating counsels and their uncertain resolves; I have seen the blotted despatches and equivocal messages given, to be disavowed if needful; I have a.s.sisted at those dress rehearsals where speech was to follow speech, and what seemed an incautious avowal by one was to be "improved" into a bold declaration by another "in another place"; in fact, my good friend, I have been near enough to measure the mighty intelligences that direct us, and if I were not a believer in Darwin, I should be very much shocked for what humanity was coming to. It is no exaggeration that I say, if you were to be in the Home Office, and I at the Foreign Office, without our names being divulged, there is not a man or woman in England would be the wiser or the worse; though if either of us were to take charge of the engine of the Holyhead line, there would be a smash or an explosion before we reached Rugby.'

'All that will not enable you to make a settlement on Nina Kostalergi.'

'No; but I'll marry her all the same.'

'I don't think so.'

'Will you have a bet on it, d.i.c.k? What will you wager?'

'A thousand--ten, if I had it; but I'll give you ten pounds on it, which is about as much as either of us could pay.'

'Speak for yourself, Master d.i.c.k. As Robert Macaire says, "_Je viens de toucher mes dividendes_," and I am in no want of money. The fact is, so long as a man can pay for certain luxuries in life, he is well off: the strictly necessary takes care of itself.'

'Does it? I should like to know how.'

'With your present limited knowledge of life, I doubt if I could explain it to you, but I will try one of these mornings. Meanwhile, let us go into the drawing-room and get mademoiselle to sing for us. She will sing, I take it?'

'Of course--if asked by you.' And there was the very faintest tone of sneer in the words.

And they did go, and mademoiselle did sing all that Atlee could ask her for, and she was charming in every way that grace and beauty and the wish to please could make her. Indeed, to such extent did she carry her fascinations that Joe grew thoughtful at last, and muttered to himself, 'There is vendetta in this. It is only a woman knows how to make a vengeance out of her attractions.'

'Why are you so serious, Mr. Atlee?' asked she at last.

'I was thinking--I mean, I was trying to think--yes, I remember it now,'

muttered he. 'I have had a letter for you all this time in my pocket.'

'A letter from Greece?' asked she impatiently.

'No--at least I suspect not. It was given me as I drove through the bog by a barefooted boy, who had trotted after the car for miles, and at length overtook us by the accident of the horse picking up a stone in his hoof.

He said it was for "some one at the castle," and I offered to take charge of it--here it is,' and he produced a square-shaped envelope of common coa.r.s.e-looking paper, sealed with red wax, and a shamrock for impress.

'A begging-letter, I should say, from the outside,' said d.i.c.k.

'Except that there is not one so poor as to ask aid from me,' added Nina, as she took the doc.u.ment, glanced at the writing, and placed it in her pocket.

As they separated for the night, and d.i.c.k trotted up the stairs at Atlee's side, he said, 'I don't think, after all, my ten pounds is so safe as I fancied.'

'Don't you?' replied Joe. 'My impressions are all the other way, d.i.c.k. It is her courtesy that alarms me. The effort to captivate where there is no stake to win, means mischief. She'll make me in love with her whether I will or not.' The bitterness of his tone, and the impatient bang he gave his door as he pa.s.sed in, betrayed more of temper than was usual for him to display, and as d.i.c.k sought his room, he muttered to himself, 'I'm glad to see that these over-cunning fellows are sure to meet their match, and get beaten even at the game of their own invention.'

CHAPTER Lx.x.xI

AN UNLOOKED-FOR CORRESPONDENT

It was no uncommon thing for the tenants to address pet.i.tions and complaints in writing to Kate, and it occurred to Nina as not impossible that some one might have bethought him of entreating her intercession in their favour. The look of the letter, and the coa.r.s.e wax, and the writing, all in a measure strengthened this impression, and it was in the most careless of moods she broke the envelope, scarcely caring to look for the name of the writer, whom she was convinced must be unknown to her.

She had just let her hair fall freely down on her neck and shoulders, and was seated in a deep chair before her fire, as she opened the paper and read, 'Mademoiselle Kostalergi.' This beginning, so unlikely for a peasant, made her turn for the name, and she read, in a large full hand, the words 'DANIEL DONOGAN.' So complete was her surprise, that to satisfy herself there was no trick or deception, she examined the envelope and the seal, and reflected for some minutes over the mode in which the doc.u.ment had come to her hands. Atlee's story was a very credible one: nothing more likely than that the boy was charged to deliver the letter at the castle, and simply sought to spare himself so many miles of way, or it might be that he was enjoined to give it to the first traveller he met on his road to Kilgobbin. Nina had little doubt that if Atlee guessed or had reason to know the writer, he would have treated the letter as a secret missive which would give him a certain power over her.

These thoughts did not take her long, and she turned once more to the letter. 'Poor fellow,' said she aloud, 'why does he write to _me_?' And her own voice sent back its surmises to her; and as she thought over him standing on the lonely road, his clasped hands before him, and his hair wafted wildly back from his uncovered head, two heavy tears rolled slowly down her cheeks and dropped upon her neck. 'I am sure he loved me--I know he loved me,' muttered she, half aloud. 'I have never seen in any eye the same expression that his wore as he lay that morning in the gra.s.s. It was not veneration, it was genuine adoration. Had I been a saint and wanted worship, there was the very offering that I craved--a look of painful meaning, made up of wonder and devotion, a something that said: take what course you may, be wilful, be wayward, be even cruel, I am your slave.

You may not think me worthy of a thought, you may be so indifferent as to forget me utterly, but my life from this hour has but one spell to charm, one memory to sustain it. It needed not his last words to me to say that my image would lay on his heart for ever. Poor fellow, _I_ need not have been added to his sorrows, he has had his share of trouble without _me_!'

It was some time ere she could return to the letter, which ran thus:--

'MADEMOISELLE KOSTALERGI,--You once rendered me a great service--not alone at some hazard to yourself, but by doing what must have cost you sorely. It is now _my_ turn; and if the act of repayment is not equal to the original debt, let me ask you to believe that it taxes _my_ strength even more than _your_ generosity once taxed your own.

'I came here a few days since in the hope that I might see you before I leave Ireland for ever; and while waiting for some fortunate chance, I learned that you were betrothed and to be married to the young gentleman who lies ill at Kilgobbin, and whose approaching trial at the a.s.sizes is now the subject of so much discussion. I will not tell you--I have no right to tell you--the deep misery with which these tidings filled me. It was no use to teach my heart how vain and impossible were all my hopes with regard to you. It was to no purpose that I could repeat over aloud to myself how hopeless my pretensions must be. My love for you had become a religion, and what I could deny to a hope, I could still believe. Take that hope away, and I could not imagine how I should face my daily life, how interest myself in its ambitions, and even care to live on.

'These sad confessions cannot offend you, coming from one even as humble as I am. They are all that are left me for consolation--they will soon be all I shall have for memory. The little lamp in the lowly shrine comforts the kneeling worshipper far more than it honours the saint; and the love I bear you is such as this. Forgive me if I have dared these utterances. To save him with whose fortunes your own are to be bound up became at once my object; and as I knew with what ingenuity and craft his ruin had been compa.s.sed, it required all my efforts to baffle his enemies. The National press and the National party have made a great cause of this trial, and determined that tenant-right should be vindicated in the person of this man Gill.

'I have seen enough of what is intended here to be aware what mischief may be worked by hard swearing, a violent press, and a jury not insensible to public opinion--evils, if you like, but evils that are less of our own growing than the curse ill-government has brought upon us. It has been decided in certain councils--whose decrees are seldom gainsaid--that an example shall be made of Captain Gorman O'Shea, and that no effort shall be spared to make his case a terror and a warning to Irish landowners; how they attempt by ancient process of law to subvert the concessions we have wrung from our tyrants.

'A jury to find him guilty will be sworn; and let us see the judge--in defiance of a verdict given from the jury-box, without a moment's hesitation or the shadow of dissent--let us see the judge who will dare to diminish the severity of the sentence. This is the language, these are the very words of those who have more of the rule of Ireland in their hands than the haughty gentlemen, honourable and right honourable, who sit at Whitehall.

'I have heard this opinion too often of late to doubt how much it is a fixed determination of the party; and until now--until I came here, and learned what interest his fate could have for me--I offered no opposition to these reasonings. Since then I have bestirred myself actively. I have addressed the committee here who have taken charge of the prosecution; I have written to the editors of the chief newspapers; I have even made a direct appeal to the leading counsel for the prosecution, and tried to persuade them that a victory here might cost us more than a defeat, and that the country at large, who submit with difficulty to the verdict of absolving juries, will rise with indignation at this evidence of a jury prepared to exercise a vindictive power, and actually make the law the agent of reprisal. I have failed in all--utterly failed. Some reproach me as faint-hearted and craven; some condescend to treat me as merely mistaken and misguided; and some are bold enough to hint that, though as a military authority I stand without rivalry, as a purely political adviser, my counsels are open to dispute.

'I have still a power, however, through the organisation of which I am a chief; and by this power I have ordered Gill to appear before me, and in obedience to my commands, he will sail this night for America. With him will also leave the two other important witnesses in this cause; so that the only evidence against Captain O'Shea will be some of those against whom he has himself inst.i.tuted a cross charge for a.s.sault. That the prosecution can be carried on with such testimony need not be feared. Our press will denounce the infamous arts by which these witnesses have been tampered with, and justice has been defeated. The insults they may hurl at our oppressors--for once unjustly--will furnish matter for the Opposition journals to inveigh against our present Government, and some good may come even of this. At all events, I shall have accomplished what I sought. I shall have saved from a prison the man I hate most on earth, the man who, robbing me of what never could be mine, robs me of every hope, of every ambition, making my love as worthless as my life! Have I not repaid you?

Ask your heart which of us has done more for the other?

'The contract on which Gill based his right as a tenant, and which would have sustained his action, is now in my hands; and I will--if you permit me--place it in yours. This may appear an ingenious device to secure a meeting with you; but though I long to see you once more, were it but a minute, I would not compa.s.s it by a fraud. If, then, you will not see me, I shall address the packet to you through the post.

'I have finished. I have told you what it most concerns you to know, and what chiefly regards your happiness. I have done this as coldly and impa.s.sively, I hope, as though I had no other part in the narrative than that of the friend whose friendship had a blessed office. I have not told you of the beating heart that hangs over this paper, nor will I darken one bright moment of your fortune by the gloom of mine. If you will write me one line--a farewell if it must be--send it to the care of Adam Cobb, "Cross Keys," Moate, where I shall find it up to Thursday next. If--and oh!

how shall I bless you for it--if you will consent to see me, to say one word, to let me look on you once more, I shall go into my banishment with a bolder heart, as men go into battle with an amulet. DANIEL DONOGAN.'

'Shall I show this to Kate?' was the first thought of Nina as she laid the letter down. 'Is it a breach of confidence to let another than myself read these lines? a.s.suredly they were meant for my eyes alone. Poor fellow!'

said she, once more aloud. 'It was very n.o.ble in him to do this for one he could not but regard as a rival.' And then she asked herself how far it might consist with honour to derive benefit from his mistake--since mistake it was--in believing O'Shea was her lover, and to be her future husband.

'There can be little doubt Donogan would never have made the sacrifice had he known that I am about to marry Walpole.' From this she rambled on to speculate on how far might Donogan's conduct compromise or endanger him with his own party, and if--which she thought well probable--there was a distinct peril in what he was doing, whether he would have incurred that peril if he really knew the truth, and that it was not herself he was serving.

The more she canva.s.sed these doubts, the more she found the difficulty of resolving them, nor indeed was there any other way than one--distinctly to ask Donogan if he would persist in his kind intentions when he knew that the benefit was to revert to her cousin and not to herself. So far as the evidence of Gill at the trial was concerned, the man's withdrawal was already accomplished, but would Donogan be as ready to restore the lease, and would he, in fact, be as ready to confront the danger of all this interference, as at first? She could scarcely satisfy her mind how she would wish him to act in the contingency! She was sincerely fond of Kate, she knew all the traits of honesty and truth in that simple character, and she valued the very qualities of straightforwardness and direct purpose in which she knew she was herself deficient. She would have liked well to secure that dear girl's happiness, and it would have been an exquisite delight to her to feel that she had been an aid to her welfare; and yet, with all this, there was a subtle jealousy that tortured her in thinking, 'What will this man have done to prove his love for _me_? Where am I, and what are my interests in all this?' There was a poison in this doubt that actually extended to a state of fever. 'I must see him,' she said at last, speaking aloud to herself. 'I must let him know the truth. If what he proposes shall lead him to break with his party or his friends, it is well he should see for what and for whom he is doing it.'

And then she persuaded herself she would like to hear Donogan talk, as once before she had heard him talk, of his hopes and his ambitions. There was something in the high-sounding inspirations of the man, a lofty heroism in all he said, that struck a chord in her Greek nature. The cause that was so intensely a.s.sociated with danger that life was always on the issue, was exactly the thing to excite her heart, and, like the trumpet-blast to the charger, she felt stirred to her inmost soul by whatever appealed to reckless daring and peril. 'He shall tell me what he intends to do--his plans, his projects, and his troubles. He shall tell me of his hopes, what he desires in the future, and where he himself will stand when his efforts have succeeded; and oh!' thought she, 'are not the wild extravagances of these men better a thousand times than the well-turned nothings of the fine gentlemen who surround us? Are not their very risks and vicissitudes more manly teachings than the small casualties of the polished world? If life were all "salon," taste perhaps might decide against them; but it is not all "salon," or, if it were, it would be a poorer thing even than I think it!' She turned to her desk as she said this, and wrote:--

'DEAR MR. DONOGAN,--I wish to thank you in person for the great kindness you have shown me, though there is some mistake on your part in the matter.

I cannot suppose you are able to come here openly, but if you will be in the garden on Sat.u.r.day evening at 9 o'clock, I shall be there to meet you.

I am, very truly yours,

'NINA KOSTALERGI.'

'Very imprudent--scarcely delicate--perhaps, all this, and for a girl who is to be married to another man in some three weeks hence, but I will tell Cecil Walpole all when he returns, and if he desires to be off his engagement, he shall have the liberty. I have one-half at least of the Bayard Legend, and if I cannot say I am "without reproach," I am certainly without fear.'