u."

"What good is it? Why did you teach me to believe a falsehood?"

"Oh! you will kill me if you accuse me. I have been so true to you."
Then Ada turned round upon the bed, and hid her face for a few
minutes upon the pillow. "Ada, have I not been true to you?"

"But that you should have been so much mistaken;--you, who know
everything."

"I have not known him," said Edith.

"But you will," said Ada. "You will be his wife."

"Never!" ejaculated the other.

Then slowly, Ada got up from the bed and shook her hair from off her
face and wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. "It must be so," she
said. "Of course it must, as he wishes it. He must have all that he
desires."

"No, not so. He shall never have this."

"Yes, Edith, he must and he shall. Do you not know that you loved him
before you ever bade me to do so? But why, oh why did you ever make
that great mistake? And why was I so foolish as to have believed
you? Come," she said, "I must make his bed for him once again. He
will be here soon now and we must be away." Then she did obliterate
the traces of her form which her figure had made upon the bed, and
smoothed the pillow, and wiped away the mark of her tear which
had fallen on it. "Come, Edith, come," said she, "let us go and
understand each other. He knows, for you have told him, but no one
else need know. He shall be your husband, and I will be his sister,
and all shall be bright between you."

"Never," said Edith. "Never! He will never be married if he waits for
me."

"My dear one, you shall be his wife," said Ada. Such were the last
words which passed between them on that night.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE ROAD TO BALLYGLUNIN.

The days ran on for the trial of Pat Carroll, but Edith did not again
see Captain Clayton. There came tidings to Morony Castle of the new
honours which Mr. O'Mahony had achieved.

"I don't know that the country will be much the wiser for his
services," said Captain Clayton. "He will go altogether with those
wretched Landleaguers."

"He will be the best of the lot," said Mr. Jones.

"It is saying very little for him," said Captain Clayton.

"He is an honest man, and I take him to be the only honest man among
them."

"He won't remain a Landleaguer long if he is honest. But what about
his daughter?"

"Frank has seen her down in Cavan, and declares that she is about to
make any amount of money at the London theatres."

"I take it they will find it quite a new thin