You Never Know Your Luck; being the story of a matrimonial deserter. Volume 1. eBook

The look in Kitty Tynan’s face reminded him of that farmer’s lass in his boyhood’s history.  He was to blame then—­was he to blame now?  Certainly not consciously, not by any intended word or act.  Now he met her eyes and smiled at her, not gaily, not gravely, but with a kind of whimsical helplessness; for she was the first to remind him that he was leaving the court-room in a different position (if not a different man) from that in which he entered it.  He had entered the court-room as James Gathorne Kerry, and he was leaving it as Shiel Crozier; and somehow James Gathorne Kerry had always been to himself a different man from Shiel Crozier, with different views, different feelings, if not different characteristics.

He saw faces turned to him, a few with intense curiosity, fewer still with a little furtiveness, some with amusement, and many with unmistakable approval; for one thing was clear, if his own evidence was correct:  he was the son of a baronet, he was heir-presumptive to a baronetcy, and he had scored off Augustus Burlingame in a way which delighted a naturally humorous people.  He noted, however, that the nod which Studd Bradley, the financier, gave him had in it an enigmatic something which puzzled him.  Surely Bradley could not be prejudiced against him because of the evidence he had given.  There was nothing criminal in living under an assumed name, which, anyhow, was his own name in three-fourths of it, and in the other part was the name of the county where he was born.

“Divils me own, I told you he was up among the dukes,” said Malachi Deely to John Sibley as they came out.  “And he’s from me own county, and I know the name well enough; an’ a damn good name it is.  The bulls of Castlegarry was famous in the south of Ireland.”

“I’ve a warm spot for him.  I was right, you see.  Backing horses ruined him,” said Sibley in reply; and he looked at Crozier admiringly.

There is the communion of saints, but nearer and dearer is the communion of sinners; for a common danger is their bond, and that is even more than a common hope.

CHAPTER IV

“Strength shall be given Thee”

On the evening of the day of the trial, Mrs. Tynan, having fixed the new blind to the window of Shiel Crozier’s room, which was on the ground-floor front, was lowering and raising it to see if it worked properly, when out in the moonlit street she saw a wagon approaching her house surrounded and followed by obviously excited men.  Once before she had seen just such a group nearing her door.  That was when her husband was brought home to die in her arms.  She had a sudden conviction, as, holding the blind in her hand, she looked out into the night, that again tragedy was to cross her threshold.  Standing for an instant under the fascination of terror, she recovered herself with a shiver, and, stepping