, please to remember
that I am ignorant of everything you allude to. What of Kate?"

"Oh, I forgot you were not with us then. It was a proposal of marriage.
Young Travers made your cousin a brilliant offer, as far as money was
concerned, which Kate refused. There was some negociation about leaving
the thing open. Something about the future--I forget exactly what--but I
only know she was peremptory and decided, as she always is, and wrote
to me to take her home. Archy went up for her to Dublin, and the Travers
soon after left Ireland in high indignation with us, and determined, as
we soon found, to let us feel their enmity. Then it was that we learned
to appreciate Hemsworth, whom all along we had so completely mistaken,
and indeed, but for him, we should never have heard of you."

"Of me. What did he know of me?"

"Everything, Mark--all--said the old man, in a low whisper, as he stole
a prying glance through the room to satisfy himself that they were not
overheard.

"Once more, sir, speak out, and intelligibly--say what this man seemed
to know of me?"

"He knew Talbot--Barrington rather"--said the O'Donoghue, in a low
voice--"knew of your intercourse with him--knew of the plot that fellow
laid to entangle you in his schemes--knew all about the robbery at the
Curragh, and saved you, without your knowing it, from being there. But
for him, Mark, your name would have figured in the 'Hue-and-Cry.' A
reward for your apprehension was actually deliberated at the Privy
Council. Hemsworth rescued you from this----"

"The scoundrel--the base, black-hearted villain," exclaimed Mark, "did
he dare to speak thus of _me_?"

"You mistake, Mark, he never said you were culpable--he only deplored
the fatal accident of your intimacy with Barrington--a man twice
convicted and sentenced--that in company with this man you frequented
certain houses of high play, where more than one large robbery was
effected. Then came the Castle ball--was it not true that you went
there? Well, the diamond snuff-box stolen from Lord Clan-goff, at the
card table----"

"Hell and confusion, you will drive me mad," cried Mark, stamping his
foot with passion. "This infernal mixture of truth and falsehood--this
half fact and all lying statement is more than my brain can bear. What
does this scoundrel mean--is it that I am guilty of a robbery?"

"Heaven forbid, boy, but that you lived on terms of closest friendship
with one branded as a felon, and that info