ng for her, poor
girl! to be forced to tell all her secrets, to declare all that she
would most wish to conceal before the mob that will be in the room at
Carrick."

"Yes," added Tony, "and to stand there without any one to support
her, and to be asked questions, which if they're answered correctly,
may be will hang her brother."

"I'll never believe," said Father John, "that he killed him in cold
blood. Yourself, Mrs. McKeon hasn't a kinder heart within you than
that young man; he never would have committed a wilful, premeditated
murder; I don't think yet it will come to be so bad as what McKeon
says. But when did Feemy leave this? I thought she was here, and was
to stay here for some time to come."

Mrs. McKeon then explained how Feemy had insisted on returning home
the morning after the ball, with the promise of returning again.
After talking over the various unaccountable circumstances of the
case, without once suspecting that Feemy had consented to and had
actually been in the act of going off with Ussher, Mrs. McKeon
agreed, at the instigation of her husband and the priest, to
accompany Feemy to the inquest, and after it was over to bring her to
her own house, and to allow her to remain there till something should
be definitely arranged as to her future residence.

"For," said Tony, "Ballycloran will be no place for her again, nor
the county either for the matter of that; but now that she's unhappy
she shan't want a roof over her head; we were glad enough to see her
when she held her head high, and I wouldn't advise any one to say
much against her now she's in throuble--unless he wished to quarrel
with me." And Tony McKeon closed his fist as much as to show that if
any one did entertain so preposterous a wish he could be little
better than a born idiot.

Tony then sent a message into Carrick for a postchaise, that Feemy
might not be exposed to the curiosity of every one in the street
by sitting on an outside vehicle; and when she arrived in Drumsna
from Ballycloran, she was taken off the car on which her father
was sitting, and brought into Mrs. McKeon's house. She would not,
however, speak to any one, and could hardly sit on a chair without
being supported. She squeezed, however, her kind friend's hand, when
she promised to go to the inquest with her, and seemed grateful when
she was told that she should not return to Ballycloran, but should
again occupy her old quarters at Drumsna.

At length they got i