“It’s as true as the Gospel,” replied the other; “why, I’m surprised you didn’t hear it before now—­every one knows it—­it’s over the whole country.”

“It’s a lie—­it’s a lie!” he howled again; “no one dar to do such an act.  You have some schame in this—­you’re not a safe man; you’re a villain, an’ nothin’ else; but I’ll soon know; which of these is my hat?”

“You are mad, I think,” said Cassidy.

“Get me my hat, I say; I’ll soon know it; but sure the world’s all in a schame against me—­all, all, young an’ ould—­where’s my hat, I say?”

“You have put it upon your head this moment,” said the other.

“An’ my stick?”

“It’s in your hand.”

“The curse o’ Heaven upon you,” he shrieked, “whether it’s thrue or false!” and, with a look that might scorch him to whom it was directed, he shuffled in a wild and frantic mood out of the house.

“The man is mad,” observed Cassidy; “or, if not, he will soon be so; I never witnessed such a desperate case of avarice.  If ever the demon of money lurked in any man’s soul, it’s in his.  God bless me!  God bless me! it’s dreadful!  Richard, tell the gentleman in the dining-room I’m at leisure to see him.”

The scene we have attempted to describe spared O’Brien the trouble of much unpleasant inquiry, and enabled him to enter at once into the proposed arrangements on behalf of Connor.  Of course he did not permit his sister’s name to transpire, nor any trace whatsoever to appear, by which her delicacy might be compromised, or her character involved.  His interference in the matter he judiciously put upon the footing of personal regard for the young man, and his reluctance to be even the indirect means of bringing him to a violent and shameful death.  Having thus fulfilled Una’s instructions, he returned home, and relieved her of a heavy burthen by a full communication of all that had been done.

The struggle hitherto endured by Fardoroug—­he was in its own nature sufficiently severe to render his sufferings sharp and pungent; still they resembled the influence of local disease more than that of a malady which prostrates the strength and grapples with the powers of the whole constitution.  The sensation he immediately felt, on hearing that his banker had absconded with the gains of his penurious life, was rather a stunning shock that occasioned for the moment a feeling of dull, and heavy, and overwhelming dismay.  It filled, nay, it actually distended his narrow soul with an oppressive sense of exclusive misery that banished all consideration for every person and thing extraneous to his individual selfishness.  In truth, the tumult of his mind was peculiarly wild and anomalous.  The situation of his son, and the dreadful fate that hung over him, were as completely forgotten as if they did not exist.  Yet there lay, underneath his own gloomy agony, a remote consciousness of collateral affliction, such as is frequently experienced