said, that he would wriggle out of
it somehow. I would give all the gold pieces I have in my belt for
half an hour's talk with him, with a good shillelah!"

"Well, we can afford to let bygones be bygones, Mike. And after
all, he did me a service, unwittingly, in sending me over to
France. In the first place, I had three years of stirring life; in
the next, I have made many good friends, and have gained the
patronage of two powerful noblemen, without which I should have
assuredly never come in for Kilkargan at all."

"That is true for you, your honour. And without it, I might be
still a private in O'Brien's regiment, instead of being your
honour's body servant."

"And friend, Mike."

"Yes, sir, as you are good enough to say so."

Mr. Fergusson put John O'Carroll's letter down, with a gesture of
disgust, after he had read it.

"It is what might have been expected from such a man," he said. "A
traitor to the cause he once adhered to, false to his religion,
and a usurper of his nephew's rights.

"At any rate, Mr. O'Carroll, I congratulate you. It has prevented
a grievous scandal from being made public, and the large
expenditure entailed by such a case. You have now only to go down
and take possession."

"I shall write to my uncle, and give him a week to clear out, and
to make what explanation he chooses of the change."

Gerald wrote at once to his uncle. It was coldly worded, and
showed unmistakably that he was, in no way, deceived by the
professions in his letter. He told him that he considered it fair
that he should retain the savings he had made, as he had
personally been confirmed in the ownership of Kilkargan, the
Government being ignorant that his brother had left a son. He said
that he thought it would be more pleasant, for both of them, that
they should not meet, and wished, therefore, that he would leave,
before his arrival to take possession.

John O'Carroll at once summoned the tenants, and astonished them
by informing them that, he was glad to say, he was free at last to
lay down the position he had held as owner of Kilkargan. That his
brother James had left a son, whom they all knew as Desmond
Kennedy, but whom he had been obliged to treat with coldness, lest
suspicions should be excited as to his identity. Had this been
known, he would assuredly have been proscribed as the son of a
rebel, and debarred by law from any inheritance. He was delighted
to say that the time had come when he could publi