thing eminently suggestive and mournful. The veriest stranger would have been touched at the sight of this young man, stricken down like the green, unripened summer grain, in the flush of his health and strength. With a violent effort the wretched wife dragged herself forward to the side of the bed, and looked down on the calm dead face, which wore that expression of deep profound peace so often seen on the faces of those who have died of gunshot wounds. Leaning on her staff, Miss Nickie came to her side. "Kiss him," she said, laying her large, wrinkled hand kindly on her arm; "kiss him, hinny, puir lad! He liked ye weel."

Lady Connell started violently, and looked round with an expression of intense agony. She then bent her face down, but before it touched that of the corpse she uttered a loud scream, and fainted.

When she recovered, she caught hold of Mary's hand, who was leaning over her. 'It was very weak of me. Forgive me, dear! and ask Aunt to let me go to Cumlagh. I have a great many things to do there that must be done."

They would have persuaded her to stay all night, but she seemed so bent on leaving immediately, that Miss Nickie thought it was best to yield to her. The carriage was ordered, and she returned in a restless state of excitement to Nelly's care.

"Soothe me as you used to do, when I was a child, Nelly. I wish I had died then. I am the most miserable woman alive."

"Shure, and I will do my best, mavourneen," said the old woman, literally soothing her as she would have soothed a wearied child; and under her loving care she became quiet at last, though she did not sleep, but lay with her large dark eyes wide open staring into

vacancy.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

MARTIN DOYLE'S CONFESSION.

It was not until the next evening that Lady Connell was well enough to enter her father's room. It looked very silent and deserted-with the chairs set straight back against the walls, the massive bedstead, hearselike and gloomy, the old law-books piled upon the tables, and the window raised a few inches to let the outer air mingle with the funereal closeness within. Upon the bed, the crimson drapery of which swayed in the sharp autumn wind that swept in through the halfclosed shutters, rested a coffin of oak, on which a long slant ray of moonlight streamed and quivered. Lady Connell put down her lamp on a stand near the bed, drew away from the face of the corpse the cold linen cloth, and kissed it. "Father!" she murmured, just as if he could still hear her, "I promised never to forsake you, and I never will; I have come to keep my word."

She had sent Nelly to Castle Connell with news of her illness, and had heard, through her, that Sir Philip was shot at and wounded on his return from, not on his way to Mullatoyle. She had seen Captain Bent also, who had informed her, with many apologies, that it would be necessary to search the house, but that he would delay doing so until after the funeral. He had every desire to spare her ladyship's feelings.

Her ladyship thanked him, and took her resolution at once. And it was in pursuance of this resolution that

she now unlocked the old desk, and took from it the packet addressed to herself, and going to the stand on which she had placed the lamp, broke the seal, and read as follows:

"My darling child, when you open this I shall be dead, and all the world will be judging me; but, oh! my little Ettie, you will, you must judge me leniently, although I am forced to leave a great burden upon you, and make a humiliating confession to you. Sir Maurice did not commit suicide, my child! To make you understand all this, I must go back a long way. Sir Maurice had been a fast, dissipated young man, and I had been his agent, a young man like himself, a connexion too; but that was afterwards and sorely against his will, and I was privy to many of his adventures, and to his worst entanglement, I truly believe. It was a shameful case. She, his victim I mean, was an uncommon girl even then, although very rude and unpolished; you will see in a miniature in the secret drawer downstairs what she became.

"Sir Maurice he was only plain Maurice Connell then, with little chance of becoming anything more, for his brother Philip was living-Maurice Connell, I say, fell in love with this rude, uneducated country girl. She was the daughter of a widow who had been his nurse, and her name was Wynne-Kathleen Wynne. I used to wonder at his infatuation, for she had not much beauty; not then, at least, and the qualities which afterwards entranced the world were then undeveloped. I do not remember now, if I ever knew, how it was that his father got to hear something of the matter; but my old partner was employed to warn and threaten him, and separate him from her at all costs. It was a bad business. At one time I thought it was even worse than it turned out to be. I feared that they were married,

but this he denied, with the most solemn oaths that a man can use. He had promised to marry her, he admitted, solemnly promised; but being a minor, the sin of his broken oath would not lie upon him. I thought then, I think now, that he was glad to get rid of her, particularly as his father promised to provide for her. I was sent to inform her of Sir Brian's generosity; but when I went to her mother's cottage I found her gone, and the old woman in bed raving with brain fever. She never recovered from that illness, mentally I mean, for physically she grew as strong or stronger than ever, and took to wandering up and down over the country. Maurice Connell and his father were both obliged to us, I believe, for the way in which we managed the business; but I never felt very proud of my part in it. Then came my marriage and Sir Brian's anger, and then Maurice went abroad, and Philip died. My partner was dead, and I had ceased to be agent for them then, but Maurice continually wrote to me, from abroad, letters full of remorse about Kathleen Wynne, with money inclosed to send to her. I sent it once or twice, and received it back from her. She was too proud to accept of anything from the man who had wronged her so grievously, and I cannot say I thought her wrong. But he still kept sending money, and entreating me to send it, which I did, and again got it back, this time with the intimation that no such person as Kathleen Wynne lived in the neighbourhood. That was the last we heard of her for many a year. Maurice Connell-the heir he was now-still continued to live abroad, and to write about her, and press me to make inquiries after her and try to discover her whereabouts, if possible, and to send him news of little Brian.

"This was a child left, a short time after Kathleen's disappearance, at the gates of the Castle one night.

Sir Brian ordered it to be taken in, put out to nurse, and cared for. Both he and Miss Nickie, I think, knew well enough whose child he was, for when he could run about he came back to the Castle, and the old gentleman got fond of him; he even left him a trifle in his will. When Sir Brian died I thought Sir Maurice would come home, but he did not, and his interest in Kathleen Wynne and the boy altogether ceased. I heard from him still, but it was entirely about the management of the property, which he had recommitted to my care. Sometimes, in my replies, I urged him to come home; but he always wrote back that he liked Paris, and disliked Ireland, and had no intention of returning to it. He repeated this so often that I believed him at last, and was very much surprised when Miss Nickie told me that he was just about to be married and return home. In a short time he returned, a haughty, supercilious man, altered much for the worse. very His wife was a pretty timid Frenchwoman, whose only feeling for him seemed to be fear, not half such a good wife for him as Kathleen Wynne would have made; and to my surprise his desire to trace and discover her whereabouts seemed more intense After his son's birth this desire became still stronger. He teased and tormented and worried me to find out the residence of this woman, who I began to think must be dead, so completely did she baffle my ingenuity and that of my agents, although neither expense nor trouble was spared. At last I got a clue to her; she was no longer the poor, despised, betrayed peasant girl, but a great actress, with the fashionable world at her feet. She was then in London; she was soon to be in Dublin, and it was settled that Sir Maurice and I were to go up and make sure if she was really the woman after whom we had been so long in search. I longed for the interview to the full as much as Sir

than ever.