long, sorrowful, implorin’ look she used to give me.  I’ll go mad!—­I’ll go mad!—­I’ve killed her—­I’ve murdhered her, an’ there’s no one to take me up an’ punish me for it!  An’ when I was ill, Peggy dear, when I had time to think on my sick bed of all your love and all your sorrow and distress and shame on my account, I thought I’d never see you in time to tell you what I was to do, an’ to give consolation to your breakin’ heart; but all that’s now over; you are gone from me, an’ like the lovin’ crathur you ever wor, you brought your baby along wid you!  An’ when I think of it—­oh God, when I think of it, before your shame, my heart’s delight, how your eye felt proud out of me, an’ how it smiled when it rested on me.  Oh, little you thought I’d hould back to do you justice—­me that you doted on—­an’ yet it was I that sullied you—­I! me!  Here,” he shouted—­“here, is there no one to saize a murdherer!—­no one to bring him to justice!”

Those present now gathered about him, and attempted as best they might, to soothe and pacify him; but in vain.

“Oh,” he proceeded, “if she was only able to upbraid me—­but what am I sayin’—­upbraid!  Oh, never, never was her harsh word heard—­oh, nothing ever to me but that long look of sorrow—­that long look of sorrow, that will either drive me mad, or lave me a broken heart!  That’s the look that’ll always, always be before me, an’ that, ’till death’s day, will keep me from ever bein’ a happy man.”

He now became exhausted, and received a drink of water, after which he wildly kissed her lips, and bathed her inanimate face, as well as those of their infant, with tears.

“Now,” said he, at length; “now, Peggy dear, listen—­so may God never prosper me, if I don’t work bitther vengeance on them that along wid myself, was the means of bringin’ you to this—­Dick-o’-the-Grange, an’ Darby Skinadre, for if Darby had given you what you wanted, you might be yet a livin’ woman.  As for myself, I care not what becomes of me; you are gone, our child is gone, and now I have nothing in this world that I’ll ever care for; there’s nothing in it that I’ll ever love again.”

He then turned to leave the room, and was in the act of going out of it, when her father, who had nearly recovered the use of his reason, said: 

“Tom Dalton, you are lavin’ this house, an’ may the curse of that girl’s father, broken-hearted as you’ve left him, go along wid you.”

“No,” exclaimed his wife, “but may the blessin’ of her mother rest upon you for the sake of the love she bore you!”

“You’ve spoken late, Kathleen Murtagh,” he replied; “the curse of the father is on me, an’ will folly me; I feel it.”

His sister then entered the room to bring him home, whither he accompanied her, scarcely conscious of what he did, and ignorant of the cloud of vengeance which was so soon to break upon his wretched father’s head.

CHAPTER XIII. —­ Sarah’s Defence of a Murderer.