e dialogue.

"He talks of the banner of the Church!" said Mark, scoffingly.

"'Oui, parbleu,' if he likes it," replied the Frenchman, laughing; "it
smacks somewhat of the middle ages; but the old proverb is right, 'a bad
etiquette never spoiled good wine.'"

"Is it then in full canonicals, and with the smoke of censers, we are to
march against the Saxon?" said Mark, with a taunting sneer.

"Hear me out, Mark," interrupted the priest; "I didn't say that we were
yet prepared even for this; there is much to be done, far more indeed
than you wot of. Every expedition insufficiently planned and badly
supported, must be a failure; every failure retards the accomplishment
of our hopes; such must this enterprise be, if now----'

"Now or never," interposed Mark, as he struck the table violently with
his clenched hand--"now, or never, for me at least. You have shown me to
these Frenchman, as a fool or worse. One with influence, and yet without
a man to back me--with courage, and you tell me to desert them--with
the confidence of my countrymen, and I come alone, unaccompanied,
unaccredited, to tell my own tale amongst them. What other indignities
have you in store for me, or in what other light am I next to figure?
But for that, and perhaps you would dare to go further, and say I am not
an O'Donoghue;" and in his passion Mark tore open a pocket-book, and
held before the old man's eyes the certificate of his baptism, written
in the priest's hand. "Yes, you have forced me to speak, of what I ever
meant to have buried in my own heart. There it is, read it, and bethink
you, how it becomes him who helped to rob me of my inheritance, to
despoil me of my honour also."

"You must unsay these words, sir," said the priest in an accent as stern
and commanding as Mark's own; "I was never a party to any fraud, nor
was I in this country when your father sold his estates."

"I care not how it happened," cried Mark, passionately. "When my
own father could do this thing, it matters little to me who were his
accomplices;" and he tore the paper in fragments, and scattered them
over the floor. "Another and a very different cause brought me here.
The French fleet has arrived."

The priest here muttered something in a low tone, to which Mark quietly
replied--

"And if they have, it is because their anchors were dragging; you would
not have the vessels go ashore on the rocks; the next tide they'll stand
up the Bay again. The people that should