Again the next morning the doctor was questioned with intense anxiety; “Was she going?—­was she drooping?—­had yesterday’s horrid doubts raised only a false alarm?” It was utterly beyond Barry’s power to make any attempt at concealment, even of the most shallow kind.  “Well, doctor, is she dying yet?” was the brutal question he put.

“She is, if anything, rather stronger;” answered the doctor, shuddering involuntarily at the open expression of Barry’s atrocious wish, and yet taking his glass of wine.

“The devil she is!” muttered Barry, throwing himself into an arm-chair.  He sat there some little time, and the doctor also sat down, said nothing, but continued sipping his wine.

“In the name of mercy, what must I do?” said Barry, speaking more to himself than to the other.

“Why, you’ve enough, Mr Lynch, without hers; you can do well enough without it.”

“Enough!  Would you think you had enough if you were robbed of more than half of all you have.  Half, indeed,” he shouted—­“I may say all, at once.  I don’t believe there’s a man in Ireland would bear it.  Nor will I.”

Again there was a silence; but still, somehow, Colligan seemed to stay longer than usual.  Every now and then Barry would for a moment look full in his face, and almost instantly drop his eyes again.  He was trying to mature future plans; bringing into shape thoughts which had occurred to him, in a wild way at different times; proposing to himself schemes, with which his brain had been long loaded, but which he had never resolved on,—­which he had never made palpable and definite.  One thing he found sure and certain; on one point he was able to become determined:  he could not do it alone; he must have an assistant; he must buy some one’s aid; and again he looked at Colligan, and again his eyes fell.  There was no encouragement there, but there was no discouragement.  Why did he stay there so long?  Why did he so slowly sip that third glass of wine?  Was he waiting to be asked? was he ready, willing, to be bought?  There must be something in his thoughts—­he must have some reason for sitting there so long, and so silent, without speaking a word, or taking his eyes off the fire.

Barry had all but made up his mind to ask the aid he wanted; but he felt that he was not prepared to do so—­that he should soon quiver and shake, that he could not then carry it through.  He felt that he wanted spirit to undertake his own part in the business, much less to inspire another with the will to assist him in it.  At last he rose abruptly from his chair, and said,

“Will you dine with me to-day, Colligan?—­I’m so down in the mouth, so deucedly hipped, it will be a charity.”

“Well,” said Colligan, “I don’t care if I do.  I must go down to your sister in the evening, and I shall be near her here.”

“Yes, of course; you’ll be near her here, as you say:  come at six, then.  By the bye, couldn’t you go to Anty first, so that we won’t be disturbed over our punch?”