ndship for Mr. Kennedy, your father, I give you twenty-four
hours to leave the country, before laying any information against
you, both as an impostor and as a rebel who has served against the
armies of Her Majesty. I shall, however, at once apply for a writ
ordering your arrest, which will be served upon you within
twenty-four hours of your receipt of this communication. I shall
also have this woman, your pretended nurse, arrested for perjury
and conspiracy.

Gerald took this letter to the counsellor.

"That is exactly what I expected," he said, after reading it. "It
shows the man in his true colours. We shall see what he says when
he learns who are employed against him, and what protection you
have obtained. My opinion is that, before many hours have passed,
you will receive a letter in a different strain. I consider it by
no means improbable that the lord chief justice will have written
to him privately, warning him that you have received a full
pardon, and are restored to all your rights, and that you are
strongly supported by Lord Godolphin, who has written to him and
the lord lieutenant in your favour; that you have also the
protection of the Earl of Galway, an officer who possesses the
confidence of Her Majesty; and that the Duke of Berwick, and many
of the best-known Irish officers in the service of France, have
all given their testimony, in the most positive manner, of your
likeness to James O'Carroll, whom they knew intimately; and will
say that, at the request of Lord Godolphin that the matter should
be placed in the hands of one of the crown lawyers, it has been
submitted to me; and that in my opinion, which I wrote him after
our interview, a decision in your favour is inevitable; and
strongly advising him to make the best compromise with you in his
power."

The same evening, indeed, a mounted messenger, who had ridden
posthaste from Kilkargan, arrived with another letter from John
O'Carroll. It began:

My Dear Nephew:

I wrote yesterday in haste, on the receipt of your communication.
It seemed to me that you were rushing on destruction, by avowing
yourself to be the son of my brother James; and that you would be
liable to be arrested as a Jacobite agent in the service of
France. Therefore, I wrote the letter that I did in hopes that you
would leave the country, for the time had not yet arrived when you
could safely be recognized by me as the rightful owner of
Kilkargan. I have heard, however, that