“If you can be one minute serious, Sally, do, I beg of you.  I am very much disturbed, I acknowledge, an’ so would you, mabe, if you knew as much as I do.”

“You’re the color of death,” she replied putting her fingers upon his cheek; “—­an, my God! is it paspiration I feel such a night as this?  I declare to goodness it is.  Give me the white pocket-handkerchy that you say Peggy Murray gave you.  Where is it?” she proceeded, taking it out of his pocket.  “Ah, ay, I have it; stoop a little; take care of your hat; here now,” and while speaking she wiped the cold perspiration from his forehead.  “Is this the one she made you a present of, an’ put the letthers on?”

“It is,” he replied, “the very same—­but she didn’t make me a present of it, she only hemmed it for me.”

“That’s a lie of you,” she replied, fiercely; “she bought it for you out of her own pocket.  I know that much.  She tould Kate Duffy so herself, and boasted of it:  but wait.”

“Well,” replied Hanlon, anxious to keep down the gust of jealousy which he saw rising, “and if she did, how could I prevent her?”

“What letthers did she put on it?”

“P. and an M.,” he replied, “the two first letthers of my name.”

“That’s another lie,” she exclaimed; “they’re not the two first letthers of your name, but of her own; there’s no M in Hanlon.  At any rate, unless you give the same handkerchy to me, I’ll make it be a black business to her.”

“Keep it, keep it, wid all my heart,” he replied, glad to get rid of a topic which at that moment came on him so powerfully and unseasonably.  “Do what you like wid it.”

“You say so willingly, now—­do you?”

“To be sure I do; an’ you may tell the whole world that I said so, if you like.”

“P.  M.—­oh, ay, that’s for Peggy Murray—­maybe the letthers I saw on the ould tobaccy-box I found in the hole of the wall to-day were for Peggy Murray.  Ha! ha! ha!  Oh, may be I won’t have a brag over her!”

“What letthers?” asked Hanlon eagerly; “a tobaccy-box, did you say?”

“Ay did I—­a tobaccy-box.  I found it in a hole in the wall in our house to-day; it tumbled out while I was gettin’ some cobwebs to stop a bleedin’.”

“Was it a good one?” asked Hanlon, with apparent carelessness, “could one use it?”

“Hardly; but no, it’s all rusty, an’ has but one hinge.”

“But one hinge!” repeated the other, who was almost breathless with anxiety; “an’ the letthers—­what’s this you say they wor?”

“The very same that’s on your handkerchy,” she replied—­“a P. an’ an M.”

“Great God!” he exclaimed, “is this possible!  Heavens!  What is that?  Did you hear anything?”

“What ails you?” she enquired.  “Why do you look so frightened?”

“Did you hear nothing?” he again asked.

“Ha! ha!—­hear!” she replied, laughing—­“hear; I thought I heard something like a groan; but sure ’tis only the wind.  Lord! what a night!  Listen how the wind an’ storm growls an’ tyrannizes and rages down in the glen there, an’ about the hills.  Faith there’ll be many a house stripped this night.  Why, what ails you?  Afther all, you’re but a hen-hearted divil, I doubt; sorra thing else.”