o Norah O'Callaghan.

"That's better," said St. Alleyne. "Now Mrs. O'Callaghan has her heart
set on Norah's going into a convent, and Norah, poor child, thinks she
has a leaning towards the religious life, and that before she has seen
any other life at all. When I heard of this folly I went over, but never
a sight of the girl could I get except with her mother. The old woman
never lets her outside the grounds, and there they walk up and down for
an hour every day."

I was becoming seriously interested, and St. Alleyne saw it.

"Does Miss O'Callaghan know you care for her?" I asked.

"I suppose any girl knows," he said.

"Did you ever speak to her about it?"

"Not seriously," he said.

"Isn't it possible she thinks you were playing with her and may be
playing still; and, granted she cares for you, mayn't that be driving
her into the convent?"

His face was suddenly flushed with a kind of pitying shame.

"By Jove!" he said. "It may be so, Phil; I never meant to play with her,
I swear that."

"I believe you," I said, "but it looks as though there might be
something in what I suggest."

"It does," he answered.

"Have you written to her?"

He tapped me once more with the poker.

"No, and if I did she'd never get the letter. I know my cousin, Mrs.
O'Callaghan. She thinks all the St. Alleynes are a bad lot, because, I
suppose, my grandfather was a wild devil once. That's where I have to
suffer for my name."

"But you could convince her otherwise, I suppose?"

"I'd undertake to do it, if I were sure of Norah."

I knocked the ashes from my pipe and stood up. The situation interested
me; my own happiness was so near that I was prepared to do a great deal
for my friend.

"Well," I said, "suppose I go over with you, how am I to help?"

He rose and stood by my side, putting his right arm round my shoulder.
He was quite his old cheerful self again.

"We'll think of that when we get there," he said. "You must draw Mrs.
O'Callaghan off while I talk to the girl somehow. If I have a sure
friend at hand the thing can be managed. I knew you'd come, old man. My
cousin, Mrs. O'Callaghan," he added, "has burnt her own boats; if she
hadn't played me this trick I might never have discovered that I wanted
Norah."

[Illustration: "MY FRIEND WAS CONSUMING LARGE CIGARS."]

"Oh, yes, you would," I said.

"You know, of course," he said, pinching my ear.

When I awoke the next morning I confess that our project did not