said his
egregious sin,--to spend the most of his time in lying on a couch
out in the garden at Morony Castle, and talking of the fate of Mr.
Lax. The remainder of his hours he devoted to the acceptance of
little sick-room favours from his hostess,--I would say from his two
hostesses, were it not that he soon came to terms with Ada, under
which Ada was not to attend to him with any particular care. "If I
could catch that fellow," he said to Ada, alluding to the man who
had intended to murder him, "I would have no harm done to him. He
should be let free at once; for I could not possibly have got such
an opportunity by any other means."

But poor Edith, the while, felt herself to be badly used. She and
Ada had often talked of the terrible perils to which Yorke Clayton
was subjected, and, as the reader may remember, had discussed the
propriety of a man so situated allowing himself to become familiar
with any girl. But now Captain Clayton was declared to be safe by
everybody. The doctors united in saying that his constitution would
carry him through a cannon-ball. But Edith felt that all the danger
had fallen to her lot.

In the meantime the search for the double murderers,--unless indeed
one murderer had been busy in both cases--was carried vainly along.
The horror of poor Mr. Morris's fate had almost disappeared under the
awe occasioned by the attack on Captain Clayton. It was astonishing
to see how entirely Mr. Morris, with all his family and his old
acres, and with Minas Cottage,--which, to the knowledge of the entire
population of Cong, was his own peculiar property,--was lost to
notice under the attack that had been made with so much audacity on
Captain Yorke Clayton. He, as one of four, all armed to the teeth,
was attacked by one individual, and attacked successfully. There
were those who said at first that the bars of Galway jail must have
been broken, and that Lax the omnipotent, Lax the omnipresent, had
escaped. And it certainly was the case that many were in ignorance
as to who the murderer had been. Probably all were ignorant,--all
of those who were in truth well acquainted with the person of Mr.
Morris' murderer. And in the minds of the people generally the awe
became greater than ever. To them it was evident that anybody could
murder anybody; and evident also that it was permitted to them to do
so by this new law which had sprung up of late in the country, almost
enjoining them to exercise this peculiar mo