rom me this evening, sir. Where shall I address my
note?'

"'The Rev. Michel Cahill--the Inn, at Inistioge,' replied I. And so we
parted."

"We must leave this at once, Michel," said D'Esmonde, after a brief
interval of silence. "Grounsell may possibly come over here himself. He
must not see me; still less must he meet with Meekins. We have gone too
fast here,--much too fast."

"But you told me that we had not a moment to lose."

"Nor have we, Michel; but it is as great an error to overrun your game
as to lag behind the scent. I distrust this doctor."

"So do I, D'Esmonde. But what can he do?"

"We must quit this place," said the other, not heeding the question.
"There is a small wayside public, called the 'Rore,' about five miles
away. We can wait there for a day, at least I almost wish that we had
never embarked in this, Michel," said he, thoughtfully. "I am seldom
faint-hearted, but I feel I know not what of coming peril. You know well
that this fellow Meekins is not to be depended on. When he drinks, he
would reveal any and everything. I myself cannot determine whether to
credit or reject his testimony. His insolence at one moment, his
slavish, abject terror at another, puzzle and confound me."

"You have been too long an absentee from Ireland, D'Esmonde, or they
would present no difficulties to your judgment. At every visit I make to
our county jail I meet with the self-same natures, torn, as it were,
by opposite influences,--the passions of this world, and the terrors of
that to come."

"Without the confessional, who could read them!" exclaimed D'Esmonde.

"How true that is!" cried the other. "What false interpretations, what
mistaken views, are taken of them! And so is it,--we, who alone know the
channel, are never to be the pilots!"

"Say not so," broke in D'Esmonde, proudly. "We are, and we shall be!
Ours will be the guidance, not alone of them, but of those who rule
them. Distrust what you will, Michel, be faint-hearted how you may, but
never despair of the glorious Church. Her triumph is already assured.
Look at Austria, at Spain, at all Northern Italy. Look at Protestant
Prussia, trembling for the fate of her Rhine provinces. Look at England
herself, vacillating between the game of conciliation and the perils
of her unlimited bigotry. Where are we not victorious? Ours is the only
despotism that ever smote two-handed,--crushing a monarchy here, and
a people there,--proclaiming divine right, or ass