soul, and
instigated him to run away from County Galway altogether.

"Miss Edith, Miss Edith," he said, "come in here, thin, and see what
I have got to show you." Then, with an air of great mystery, he drew
his young mistress into the pantry. "Look at that now! Was ever the
like of that seen since the mortial world began?" Then he took out
from a dirty envelope a dirty sheet of paper, and exposed it to her
eyes. On the top of it was a rude coffin. "Don't it make yer hair
stand on end, and yer very flesh creep, Miss Edith, to look at the
likes o' that!" And below the coffin there was a ruder skull and two
cross-bones. "Them's intended for what I'm to be. I understand their
language well enough. Look here," and he turned the envelope round
and showed that it was addressed to Peter McGrew, butler, Morony
Castle. "They know me well enough all the country round." The letter
was as follows:

MR. PETER MCGREW,

If you're not out of that before the end of the month, but
stay there doing things for them infernal blackguards,
your goose is cooked. So now you know all about it.

From yours,

MOONLIGHT.

Edith attempted to laugh at this letter, but Peter made her
understand that it was no laughing matter.

"I've a married darter in Dublin who won't see her father shot down
that way if she knows it."

"You had better take it to papa, then, and give him warning," said
Edith.

But this Peter declined to do on the spur of the moment, seeming to
be equally afraid of his master and of Captain Moonlight.

"If I'd the Captain here, he'd tell me what I ought to do." The
Captain was always Captain Clayton.

"He is coming here to-morrow, and I will show him the letter," said
Edith. But she did not on that account scruple to tell her father at
once.

"He can go if he likes it," said Mr. Jones, and that was all that Mr.
Jones said on the subject.

This was the third visit that the Captain had paid to Morony
Castle since the terrible events of the late trial. And it must be
understood that he had not spoken a word to either of the two girls
since the moment in which he had ventured to squeeze Edith's hand
with a tighter grasp than he had given to her sister. They, between
them, had discussed him and his character often; but had come to no
understanding respecting him.

Ada had declared that Edith should be his, and had in some degree
recovered from the paroxysm of sorrow which had first oppressed her.