for cards, it's enough for Miss Kostalergi to
be in the room to make one forget not only the cards, but the Fenians.'

'If it was only out of loyalty, then, I should leave you!' said she, and
walked proudly away.

CHAPTER LXXXIV

NEXT MORNING

The whist-party did not break up till nigh morning. The sergeant had once
appeared at the drawing-room to announce that all was quiet without. There
had been no sign of any rising of the people, nor any disposition to molest
the police. Indeed, so peaceful did everything look, and such an air of
easy indifference pervaded the country, the police were half disposed
to believe that the report of Donogan being in the neighbourhood was
unfounded, and not impossibly circulated to draw off attention from some
other part of the country.

This was also Lord Kilgobbin's belief. 'The man has no friends, or even
warm followers, down here. It was the merest accident first led him to this
part of the country, where, besides, we are all too poor to be rebels. It's
only down in Meath, where the people are well off, and rents are not too
high, that people can afford to be Fenians.'

While he was enunciating this fact to Curtis, they were walking up and down
the breakfast-room, waiting for the appearance of the ladies to make tea.

'I declare it's nigh eleven o'clock,' said Curtis, 'and I meant to have
been over two baronies before this hour.'

'Don't distress yourself, captain. The man was never within fifty miles of
where we are. And why would he? It is not the Bog of Allen is the place for
a revolution.'

'It's always the way with the people at the Castle,' grumbled out Curtis.
'They know more of what's going on down the country than we that live here!
It's one despatch after another. Head-centre Such-a-one is at the "Three
Cripples." He slept there two nights; he swore in fifteen men last
Saturday, and they'll tell you where he bought a pair of corduroy breeches,
and what he ate for his breakfast--'

'I wish we had ours,' broke in Kilgobbin. 'Where's Kate all this time?'

'Papa, papa, I want you for a moment; come here to me quickly,' cried
Kate, whose head appeared for a moment at the door. 'Here's very terrible
tidings, papa dearest,' said she, as she drew him along towards his study.
'Nina is gone! Nina has run away!'

'Run away for what?'

'Run away to be married; and she is married. Read this, or I'll read it for
you. A country boy has just brought it from Maryborou