cide it. Roach will sit up
with him till four o'clock, and then, I shall take the remainder of the
night, for my uncle seems quite worn out with watching."

"No, Mark, my boy, you must not lose your night's rest; you've had a
long and tiresome ride to-day."

"I'm not tired, and I'll do it," replied he, in the determined tone
of his self-willed habit--one, which his father had never sought to
control, from infancy upwards. There was a long pause after this, which
Mark broke, at length, by saying--"So, it is pretty clear now that
our game is up--the mortgage is foreclosed. Hemsworth has noticed the
Ballyvourney tenants not to pay us the rents, and the ejectment goes
on."

"What of Callaghan?" asked the O'Donoghue, in a sinking voice.

"Refused--flatly refused to renew the bills. If we give him five hundred
down," said the youth, with a bitter laugh, "he says, he'd strain a
point."

"You told him how we were circumstanced, Mark? Did you mention about
Kate's money?"

"No," said Mark, sternly, as his brows met in a savage frown. "No, sir,
I never said a word of it. She shall not be made a beggar of, for our
faults. I told you before, and I tell you now, I'll not suffer it."

"But hear me, Mark. It is only a question of time. I'll repay----"

"Repay!" was the scornful echo of the young man, as he turned a
withering glance at his father.

"Then there's nothing but ruin before us," said the O'Donoghue, in a
solemn tone--"nothing!"

The old man's head fell forward on his bosom, and, as his hands dropped
listlessly down at either side, he sat the very impersonation of
overwhelming affliction, while Mark, with heavy step and slow, walked up
and down the roomy chamber.

"Hemsworth's clerk hinted something about this old banker's intention
of building here," resumed he, after a long interval of silence.

"Building where?---over at 'the Lodge?'"

"No, here--at Carrig-na-curra--throwing down this old place, I suppose,
and erecting a modern villa instead."

"What!" exclaimed the O'Donoghue, with a look of fiery indignation. "Are
they going to grub us out, root and branch? Is it not enough to banish
the old lords of the soil, but they must remove their very landmarks
also?"

"It is for that he's come here, I've no doubt," resumed Mark; "he only
waited to have the whole estate in his possession, which this term will
give him."

"I wish he had waited a little longer--a year, or at most, two, would
have been enough,"