. DANIEL DONOGAN.'

'Shall I show this to Kate?' was the first thought of Nina as she laid the
letter down. 'Is it a breach of confidence to let another than myself read
these lines? Assuredly they were meant for my eyes alone. Poor fellow!'
said she, once more aloud. 'It was very noble in him to do this for one he
could not but regard as a rival.' And then she asked herself how far it
might consist with honour to derive benefit from his mistake--since mistake
it was--in believing O'Shea was her lover, and to be her future husband.

'There can be little doubt Donogan would never have made the sacrifice had
he known that I am about to marry Walpole.' From this she rambled on to
speculate on how far might Donogan's conduct compromise or endanger him
with his own party, and if--which she thought well probable--there was a
distinct peril in what he was doing, whether he would have incurred that
peril if he really knew the truth, and that it was not herself he was
serving.

The more she canvassed these doubts, the more she found the difficulty of
resolving them, nor indeed was there any other way than one--distinctly to
ask Donogan if he would persist in his kind intentions when he knew that
the benefit was to revert to her cousin and not to herself. So far as the
evidence of Gill at the trial was concerned, the man's withdrawal was
already accomplished, but would Donogan be as ready to restore the lease,
and would he, in fact, be as ready to confront the danger of all this
interference, as at first? She could scarcely satisfy her mind how she
would wish him to act in the contingency! She was sincerely fond of Kate,
she knew all the traits of honesty and truth in that simple character, and
she valued the very qualities of straightforwardness and direct purpose
in which she knew she was herself deficient. She would have liked well to
secure that dear girl's happiness, and it would have been an exquisite
delight to her to feel that she had been an aid to her welfare; and yet,
with all this, there was a subtle jealousy that tortured her in thinking,
'What will this man have done to prove his love for _me_? Where am I, and
what are my interests in all this?' There was a poison in this doubt that
actually extended to a state of fever. 'I must see him,' she said at last,
speaking aloud to herself. 'I must let him know the truth. If what he
proposes shall lead him to break with his party or his friends, it is well
he should see fo