Mrs. Geoffrey. Duchess

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      Again she has grown silent, as though oppressed with thought; and he too is mute, but all his mind is crowded with glad anticipations of what the near future is to give him. He has no regrets, no fears. At length, struck by her persistent taciturnity, he says, "What is it, Mona?"

      "If ever you should be sorry afterwards," she says, miserably, still tormenting herself with unseen evils, – "if ever I should see discontent in your eyes, how would it be with me then?"

      "Don't talk like a penny illustrated," says Mr. Rodney in a very superior tone. "If ever you do see all you seem to anticipate, just tell yourself I am a cur, and despise me accordingly. But I think you are paying both yourself and me very bad compliments when you talk like that. Do try to understand that you are very beautiful, and far superior to the general run of women, and that I am only pretty well so far as men go."

      At this they both laugh heartily, and Mona returns no more to the lachrymose mood that has possessed her for the last five minutes.

      The moon has gone behind a cloud, the road is almost wrapped in complete gloom, when a voice, coming from apparently nowhere, startles them, and brings them back from visions of impossible bliss to the present very possible world.

      "Hist, Miss Mona! hist!" says this voice close at Mona's ear. She starts violently.

      "Oh! Paddy," she says, as a small figure, unkempt, and only half clad, creeps through the hedge and stops short in her path.

      "Don't go on, miss," says the boy, with much excitement. "Don't ye. I see ye coming', an', no matter what they do to me, I says to myself, I'll warn her surely. They're waitin' for the agint below, an' maybe they might mistake ye for some one else in the dark, an' do ye some harm."

      "Who are they waiting for?" says Mona, anxiously.

      "For the agint, miss. Oh, if ye tell on me now they'll kill me. Maxil, ye know; me lord's agint."

      "Waiting – for what? Is it to shoot him?" asks the girl, breathlessly.

      "Yes, miss. Oh, Miss Mona, if ye bethray me now 'twill be all up wid me. Fegs an' intirely, miss, they'll murdher me out uv hand."

      "I won't betray you," she says. "You may trust me. Where are they stationed?"

      "Down below in the hollow, miss, – jist behind the hawthorn-bush. Go home some other way, Miss Mona: they're bint on blood."

      "And, if so, what are you doing here?" says Mona, reprovingly.

      "On'y watchin', miss, to see what they'd do," confesses he, shifting from one foot to the other, and growing palpably confused beneath her searching gaze.

      "Is it murder you want to see?" asks she slowly, in a horrified tone. "Go home, Paddy. Go home to your mother." Then, changing her censuring manner to one of entreaty, she says, softly, "Go, because I ask you."

      "I'm off, miss," says the miscreant, and, true to his word, darts through the hedge again like a shaft from a bow, and, scurrying through the fields, is soon lost to sight.

      "Come with me," says Mona to Rodney; and with an air of settled determination, and a hard look on her usually mobile lips, she moves deliberately towards the hawthorn-bush, that is about a quarter of a mile distant.

      "Mona," says Rodney, divining her intent, "stay you here while I go and expostulate with these men. It is late, darling, and their blood is up, and they may not listen to you. Let me speak to them."

      "You do not understand them," returns she, sadly. "And I do. Besides, they will not harm me. There is no fear of that. I am not at all afraid of them. And – I must speak to them."

      He knows her sufficiently well to refrain from further expostulation, and just accompanies her silently along the lonely road.

      "It is I, – Mona Scully," she calls aloud, when she is within a hundred yards of the hiding-place. "Tim Ryan, come here: I want you."

      It is a mere guess on her part, – supported certainly by many tales she has heard of this Ryan of late, but a guess nevertheless. It proves, however, to be a correct one. A man, indistinct, but unmistakable, shows himself on the top of the wall, and pulls his forelock through force of habit.

      "What are you doing here, Tim?" says Mona, bravely, calmly, "at this hour, and with – yes, do not seek to hide it from me – a gun! And you too, Carthy," peering into the darkness to where another man, less plucky than Ryan lies concealed. "Ah! you may well wish to shade your face, since it is evil you have in your heart this night."

      "Do ye mane to inform on us?" says Ryan, slowly, who is "a man of a villanous countenance," laying his hand impulsively upon his gun, and glancing at her and Rodney alternately with murder in his eyes. It is a critical moment. Rodney, putting out his hand, tries to draw her behind him.

      "No, I am not afraid," says the girl, resisting his effort to put himself before her; and when he would have spoken she puts up her hands, and warns him to keep silence.

      "You should know better than to apply the word 'informer' to one of my blood," she says, coldly, speaking to Ryan, without a tremor in her voice.

      "I know that," says the man, sullenly. "But what of him?" pointing to Rodney, the ruffianly look still on his face. "The Englishman, I mane. Is he sure? It's a life, for a life afther all, when everything is towld."

      He handles the gun again menacingly. Mona, though still apparently calm, whitens perceptibly beneath the cold penetrating rays of the "pale-faced moon" that up above in "heaven's ebon vault, studded with stars unutterably bright," looks down upon her perhaps with love and pity.

      "Tim," she says, "what have I ever done to you that you should seek to make me unhappy?"

      "I have nothing to do with you. Go your ways. It is with him I have to settle," says the man, morosely.

      "But I have to do with him," says Mona, distinctly.

      At this, in spite of everything, Rodney laughs lightly, and, taking her hand in his, draws it through his arm. There is love and trust and great content in his laugh.

      "Eh!" says Ryan; while the other man whom she has called Carthy – and who up to this has appeared desirous of concealing himself from view – now presses forward and regards the two with lingering scrutiny.

      "Why, what have you to do with her?" says Ryan, addressing Rodney, a gleam of something that savors of amusement showing itself even in his ill-favored face. For an Irishman, under all circumstances, dearly loves "a courting, a bon-mot, and a broil."

      "This much," says Rodney, laughing again: "I am going to marry her, with her leave."

      "If that be so, she'll make you keep from splittin' on us," says the man. "So now go; we've work in hand to-night not fit for her eyes."

      Mona shudders.

      "Tim," she says, distractedly, "do not bring murder on your soul. Oh, Tim, think it over while there is yet time. I have heard all about it; and I would ask you to remember that it is not Mr. Maxwell's fault that Peggy Madden was evicted, but the fault of his master. If any one must be shot, it ought to be Lord Crighton" (as his lordship is at this moment safe in Constantinople, she says this boldly), "and not his paid servant."

      "I dare say we'll get at the lord by an' by" says Ryan, untouched. "Go yer ways, will ye? an' quick too. Maybe if ye thry me too far, ye'll learn СКАЧАТЬ