only your mind is unhinged by fears for my spiritual safety, and depressed by the Irish climate.  It is very depressing, I know.  I remember how you used to attribute the history of Ireland to the climate:  a beautiful climate in a way, without extremes of heat and cold, as you said once, without an accent upon it.  But you are not the ordinary Irishman; there is enough vitality in you to resist the languor of the climate.  Your mood will pass away....  Your letter about the hermit that lived on Church Island is most beautiful.  You have struck the right note—­the wistful Irish note—­and if you can write a book in that strain I am sure it will meet with great success.  Go on with your book, and don’t write to me any more—­at least, not for the present.  I have got too much to do, and cannot attend to a lengthy correspondence.  We are going to Paris, and are looking forward to spending a great deal of time reading in the National Library.  Some day we may meet, or take up this correspondence again.  At present I feel that it is better for you and better for me that it should cease.  But you will not think hardly of me because I write you this.  I am writing in your own interests, dear Father Gogarty.

’Very sincerely yours,

‘NORA GLYNN.’

He read the letter slowly, pondering every sentence and every word, and when he had finished it his hand dropped upon his knee; and when the letter fell upon the hearthrug he did not stoop to pick it up, but sat looking into the fire, convinced that everything was over and done.  There was nothing to look forward to; his life would drag on from day to day, from week to week, month to month, year to year, till at last he would be taken away to the grave.  The grave is dreamless!  But there might be a long time before he reached it, living for years without seeing or even hearing from her, for she would weary of writing to him.  He began to dream of a hunt, the quarry hearing with dying ears the horns calling to each other in the distance, and cast in his chair, his arms hanging like dead arms, his senses mercifully benumbed, he lay, how long he knew not, but it must have been a long time.

Catherine came into the room with some spoons in her hands, and asked him what was the matter, and, jumping up, he answered her rudely, for her curiosity annoyed him.  It was irritating to have to wait for her to leave the room, but he did not dare to begin thinking while she was there.  The door closed at last; he was alone again, and his thoughts fixed themselves at once on the end of her letter, on the words, ’Go on with your book, and don’t write to me any more—­at least, not for the present.  I have too much to do, and cannot attend to a lengthy correspondence.’  The evident cruelty of her words surprised him.  There was nothing like this in any of her other letters.  She intended these words as a coup de grace.  There was little mercy in them, for they left him living; he still lived—­in a way.