waiter at the Kanturk
Hotel. Very little of that servility can be enjoyed by persons of
the Mollett class when money ceases to be ready in their hands and
pockets, and there is, perhaps, nothing that they enjoy so keenly as
servility. Mollett pere had gone down determined that that comfort
should at any rate be forthcoming to him, whatever answer might
be given to those other grander demands, and we know what success
had attended his mission. He had looked to find his tame milch-cow
trembling in her accustomed stall, and he had found a resolute bull
there in her place--a bull whom he could by no means take by the
horns. He had got no money, and before he had reached Cork he had
begun to comprehend that it was not probable that he should get more
from that source.

During a part of the interview between him and Mr. Prendergast, some
spark of mercy towards his victims had glimmered into his heart. When
it was explained to him that the game was to be given up, that the
family at Castle Richmond was prepared to acknowledge the truth, and
that the effort made was with the view of proving that the poor lady
up stairs was not entitled to the name she bore rather than that she
was so entitled, then some slight promptings of a better spirit did
for a while tempt him to be merciful. "Oh, what are you about to do?"
he would have said had Mr. Prendergast admitted of speech from him.
"Why make this terrible sacrifice? Matters have not come to that.
There is no need for you to drag to the light this terrible fact. I
will not divulge it--no not although you are hard upon me in regard
to these terms of mine. I will still keep it to myself, and trust
to you,--to you who are all so rich and able to pay, for what
consideration you may please to give me." This was the state of his
mind when Mrs. Jones's evidence was being slowly evoked from her;
but it had undergone a considerable change before he reached Cork.
By that time he had taught himself to understand that there was no
longer a chance to him of any consideration whatever. Slowly he
had brought it home to himself that these people had resolutely
determined to blow up the ground on which they themselves stood. This
he perceived was their honesty. He did not understand the nature of a
feeling which could induce so fatal a suicide, but he did understand
that the feeling was there, and that the suicide would be completed.

And now what was he to do next in the way of earning his
brea