as I am, if I find that the promise I
made to Mary O'Neill has been a vain one, and that her child is under
this woman's control and the subject of a lawsuit about this man's
money, and she in her grave, as surely as the Lord God is above us there
isn't one soul of you here present who will be alive the following
morning."

That seemed to be enough for all of them. Even old Daniel O'Neill (the
only man in the house who had an ounce of fight in him) dropped his head
back in his chair, with his mouth wide open and his broken teeth showing
behind his discoloured lips.

I thought Father Dan would have been waiting for me under the trammon on
"the street," but he had gone back to the Presbytery and sent Tommy the
Mate to lead me through the mist and the by-lanes to the main road.

The old salt seemed to have a "skute" into the bad business which had
brought out the Bishop and the lawyer at that late hour, and on parting
from me at the gate of Sunny Lodge he said:

"Lord-a-massy me, what for hasn't ould Tom Dug a fortune coming to him?"

And when I asked him what he would do with a fortune if he had one he
answered:

"Do? Have a tunderin' [thundering] good law-shoot and sattle some o'
them big fellas."

Going to bed in the "Plough" that night, I had an ugly vision of the
scene being enacted in the cottage on the curragh (a scene not without
precedent in the history of the world, though the priesthood as a whole
is so pure and noble)--the midnight marriage of a man dying in unnatural
hatred of his own daughter (and she the sweetest woman in the world)
while the priest and the prostitute divided the spoils.

[END OF MARTIN CONRAD'S MEMORANDUM]

ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTEENTH CHAPTER

JULY 25. The old doctor brought me such sad and startling news to-day.
My poor father is dead--died yesterday, after an operation which he had
deferred too long, refusing to believe it necessary.

The dreadful fact has hitherto been kept secret not only from me but
from everybody, out of fear of legal proceedings arising from the
failure of banks, &c., which has brought the whole island to the verge
of bankruptcy.

He was buried this morning at old St. Mary's--very early, almost before
daybreak, to suit the convenience of the Bishop, who wished to catch the
first steamer _en route_ for Rome.

As a consequence of these strange arrangements, and the secrecy that has
surrounded my father's life of late, people are saying that he is