too late."

"What the deuce, M'Gowan!" said Dick, "speak, to the young woman--you
don't know but she may have something of importance to say to you."

She glanced at the speaker, but with a face of such indifference, as if
she had scarcely taken cognizance of him, beyond the fact that she found
some young man there in conversation with her father.

Donnel, rather to take her from under the libertine gaze of his young
friend, walked a couple of hundred yards to the right of the garden,
where, under the shadow of some trees that over-hung a neglected
fishpond, she opened the purport for her journey after him to the
Grange.

"Now, in the divil's name," he asked, "what brought you here?"

"Father," she replied, "hear me, and do not be angry, for I know--at
laste I think--that what I am goin' to say to you is right."

"Well, madame, let us hear what you have to say."

"I will--an' I must spake plain, too. You know me; that I cannot think
one thing and say another."

"Yes, I know you very well--go on--ay, and so does your unfortunate
step-mother."

"Oh--well!" she replied--"yes, I suppose so--ha! ha!" In a moment,
however, her face became softened with deep feeling; "O, father," she
proceeded, "maybe you don't know me, nor she either; it's only now I'm
beginnin' to know myself. But listen--I have often observed your
countenance, father--I have often marked it well. I can see by you when
you are pleased or angry--but that's aisy; I can tell, too, when the bad
spirit is up in you by the pale face but black look that scarcely any
one could mistake. I have seen every thing bad, father, in your
face--bad temper, hatred, revenge--an' but seldom any thing good.
Father, I'm your daughter, an' don't be angry!"

"What, in the devil's name, are you drivin' at, you brazen jade?"

"Father, you said this mornin', before you came out, that you felt your
conscience troublin' you for not discoverin' the murdher of Sullivan;
that you felt sorry for keepin' it to yourself so long--sorry!--you said
you were sorry, father!"

"I did, and I was."

"Father, I have been thinkin' of that since; no, father--your words were
false; there was no sorrow in your face, nor in your eye,--no, father,
nor in your heart. I know that--I feel it. Father, don't look so: you
may bate me, but I'm not afraid."

"Go home out o'this," he replied--"be off, and carry your cursed madness
and nonsense somewhere else."

"Father, here I stand--your own chil