secret of Corny's delay--my cousin,
with her habitual wilfulness, preferring the indulgence of a caprice to
anything resembling a duty; and I now had little doubt upon my mind that
O'Grady's fears were well founded, and that he had been obliged to sail
without his follower.

The exertion it cost me to read my letters, and the excitement produced
by their perusal, fatigued and exhausted me, and as I sank back upon my
pillow I closed my eyes and fell sound asleep, not to wake until late on
the following day. But strange enough, when I did so, it was with a head
clear and faculties collected, my mind refreshed by rest unbroken by
a single dream; and so restored did I feel, that, save in the debility
from long confinement to bed, I was unconscious of any sense of malady.

From this hour my recovery dated. Advancing every day with rapid steps,
my strength increased; and before a week elapsed, I so far regained my
lost health that I could move about my chamber, and even lay plans for
my departure.

CHAPTER XXXII. BOB MAHON AND THE WIDOW

It was about eight or ten days after the events I have mentioned, when
Father Tom Loftus, whose care and attention to me had been unceasing
throughout, came in to inform me that all the preparations for our
journey were properly made, and that by the following morning at sunrise
we should be on the road.

I confess that I looked forward to my departure with anxiety. The dreary
monotony of each day, spent either in perambulating my little room or in
a short walk up and down before the inn door, had done more to depress
and dispirit me than even the previous illness. The good priest, it is
true, came often to see me; but then there were hours spent quite alone,
without the solace of a book or the sight of even a newspaper. I knew
the face of every man, woman, and child in the village; I could tell
their haunts, their habits, and their occupations. Even the very hours
of the tedious day were marked in my mind by various little incidents,
that seemed to recur with unbroken precision; and if when the pale
apothecary disappeared from over the half-door of his shop I knew
that he was engaged at his one o'clock dinner, so the clink of the old
ladies' pattens, as they passed to an evening tea, told me that the day
was waning, when the town-clock should strike seven. There was nothing
to break the monotonous jog-trot of daily life save the appearance of
a few raw subalterns, who, from some c