g the accident that divulged
his secret, to impress him with the hazard of an undertaking,
so palpably depicted, and to the safe keeping of which, his own
carelessness, might prove fatal; but each effort dissatisfied her.
In one place, she seemed not to have sufficiently apologized for her
unauthorized cognizance of his note; in another, the stress she laid
upon this very point, struck her as too selfish, and too personal in a
case, where another's interests were the real consideration at issue;
and even when presenting before him the vicissitudes of fortune to
which his venturous career would expose him, she felt how every word
contradicted the tenor of her own assertions for many a day and week
previous. In utter despair how to act, she ended by enclosing the letter
with merely these few words:--

"I have read the enclosed, but your secret is safe with me.

"K. O'D."

This done, she sealed the packet and had just written the address, when,
with a tap at the door, Sir Archy entered, and approached the table.

With a tact and delicacy he well understood, Sir Archy explained the
object of his visit--to press upon Kate's acceptance a sum of money
sufficient for her outlay in the capital. The tone of half authority he
assumed disarmed her at once, and made her doubt how far she could feel
justified in opposing the wishes of her friends concerning her.

"Then you really desire I should go to Dublin," said she.

"I do, Kate, for many reasons--reasons which I shall have little
difficulty in explaining to you hereafter."

"I half regret I ever thought of it," said Kate, speaking her thoughts
unconsciously aloud.

"Not the less reason perhaps for going," said Sir Archy, drily; whileat
the same moment his eye caught the letter bearing Mark O'Donoghue's
name.

Kate saw on what his glance was fixed, and grew red with shame and
confusion.

"Be it so then, uncle," said she, resolutely. "I do not seek to know the
reasons you speak of, for if you were to ask my own against the project,
I should not be able to frame them; it was mere caprice."

"I hope so, dearest Kate," said he, with a tone of deep affection--
"I hope so with all my heart;" and thus saying, he pressed her hand
fervently between his own and left the room.

CHAPTER XXVI. A LAST EVENING AT HOME.

With the experience of past events to guide us, it would appear now
that a most unaccountable apathy existed in the English Cabinet of the
perio