egative. The stranger
stepped out of his motor-car. Father McCormack, bowing low, advanced to
meet him.

"It is my proud and pleasant duty," he said, "to welcome your Excellency
to Ballymoy, and to assure you----"

"I want to see a gentleman called O'Grady," said the stranger, "a Dr.
O'Grady."

"He's here, your Excellency," said Father McCormack, "and there isn't
a man in Ballymoy who'll be more pleased to see your Excellency than he
will."

"I'm not His Excellency. My name is Blakeney, Lord Alfred Blakeney. I'm
aide-de-camp to the Lord-Lieutenant, and I particularly want to see Dr.
O'Grady."

CHAPTER XIX

Lord Alfred Blakeney walked up the street and crossed the square with
great dignity. He made no acknowledgment whatever of the cheers with
which the people greeted him. They still thought that he was the
Lord-Lieutenant, and, expectant of benefits of some sort, they shouted
their best. He glanced at the veiled statue, but turned his eyes away
from it immediately, as if it were something obscene or otherwise
disgusting. He took no notice of Mary Ellen, though she smiled at him.
Father McCormack and Doyle followed him, crestfallen. Major Kent, who
seemed greatly pleased, also followed him. Half way across the square
Lord Alfred Blakeney turned round and asked which was Dr. O'Grady.
Father McCormack pointed him out with deprecating eagerness, much as
a schoolboy with inferior sense of honour when himself in danger of
punishment, points out to the master the real culprit. Lord Alfred
Blakeney's forehead wrinkled in a frown. His lips closed firmly. His
whole face wore an expression of dignified severity, very terrible to
contemplate. Dr. O'Grady seemed entirely unmoved.

"I'm delighted to see you," he said, "though we expected the
Lord-Lieutenant. By the way, you're not the Lord-Lieutenant, are you, by
any chance?"

"My name is Blakeney, Lord Alfred Blakeney."

"I was afraid you weren't," said Dr. O'Grady. "Father McCormack and
Doyle insisted that you were. But I knew that His Excellency must be
a much older man. They couldn't very well make anybody of your age
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, though I daresay you'd do very well, and
deserve the honour quite as much as lots of people that get it."

Lord Alfred Blakeney had been at Eton as a boy and at Christchurch,
Oxford, afterwards as a young man. He was a Captain in the Genadier
Guards, and he was aide-de-camp to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. It
seem