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An hour later than this terrible interview, wherein his identity (never hidden by any sorry masquerade) was suddenly revealed, Daniel Mylrea, followed closely at his heels by Davy Fayle, walked amid the fires of the valley to Bishop's Court. He approached the old house by the sea-front, and went into its grounds by a gate that opened on a footpath to the library through a clump of elms. Sluggish as was Davy's intellect, he reflected that this was a path that no stranger could know.
The sky of the night had lightened, and here and there a star gleamed through the thinning branches overhead. In a faint breeze the withering leaves of the dying summer rustled slightly. On the meadow before the house a silvery haze of night-dew lay in its silence. Sometimes the croak of a frog came from the glen; and from the sea beyond (though seemingly from the mountains opposite) there rose into the air the rumble of the waves on the shore.
Daniel Mylrea passed on with a slow, strong step, but a secret pain oppressed him. He was walking on the ground that was dear with a thousand memories of happy childhood. He was going back for some brief moments that must be painful and joyful, awful and delicious, to the house which he had looked to see no more. Already he was very near to those who were very dear to him, and to whom he, too—yes, it must be so—to whom he, too, in spite of all, must still be dear. "Father, father," he whispered to himself. "And Mona, my Mona, my love, my love." Only the idle chatter of the sapless leaves answered to the yearning cry of his broken spirit.
He had passed out of the shade of the elms into the open green of the meadow with the stars above it, when another voice came to him. It was the voice of a child singing. Clear and sweet, and with a burden of tenderness such as a child's voice rarely carries, it floated through the quiet air.
Daniel Mylrea passed on until he came by the library window, which was alight with a rosy glow. There he stood for a moment and looked into the room. His father, the Bishop, was seated in the oak chair that was clamped with iron clamps. Older he seemed to be, and with the lines a thought deeper on his massive brow. On a stool at his feet, with one elbow resting on the apron in front of him, a little maiden sat, and she was singing. A fire burned red on the hearth before them. Presently the Bishop rose from his chair, and went out of the room, walking feebly, and with drooping head.
Then Daniel Mylrea walked round to the front of the house and knocked. The door was opened by a servant whose face was strange to him. Everything that he saw was strange, and yet everything was familiar. The hall was the same but smaller, and when it echoed to his foot a thrill passed through him.
He asked for the Bishop, and was led like a stranger through his father's house to the door of the library. The little maiden was now alone in the room. She rose from her stool as he entered, and, without the least reserve, stepped up to him and held out her hand. He took her tender little palm in his great fingers, and held it for a moment while he looked into her face. It was a beautiful child-face, soft and fair and oval, with a faint tinge of olive in the pale cheeks, and with yellow hair—almost white in the glow of the red fire—falling in thin tresses over a full, smooth forehead.
He sat and drew her closer to him, still looking steadily into her face. Then, in a tremulous voice he asked her what her name was, and the little maiden, who had shown no fear at all, nor any bashfulness, answered that her name was Aileen.
"But they call me Ailee," she added, promptly; "everybody calls me Ailee."
"Everybody? Who?"
"Oh, everybody," she answered, with a true child's emphasis.
"Your mother?"
She shook her head.
"Your—your—perhaps—your—"
She shook her head more vigorously.
"I know what you're going to say, but I've got none," she said.
"Got none?" he repeated.
The little maiden's face took suddenly a wondrous solemnity, and she said, "My father died a long, long, long time ago—when I was only a little baby."
His lips quivered, and his eyes fell from her face.
"Such a long, long while ago—you wouldn't think. And auntie says I can't even remember him."
"Auntie?"
"But shall I tell you what Kerry said it was that made him die?—shall I?—only I must whisper—and you won't tell auntie, will you?—because auntie doesn't know—shall I tell you?"
His quivering lips whitened, and with trembling hands he drew aside the little maiden's head that her innocent eyes might not gaze into his face.
"How old are you, Ailee ven?" he asked, in a brave voice.
"Oh, I'm seven—and auntie, she's seven too; auntie and I are twins."
"And you can sing, can you not? Will you sing for me?"
"What shall I sing?"
"Anything, sweetheart—what you sang a little while since."
"For grandpa?"
"Grandpa?"
"Kerry says no, it's uncle, not grandpa. But that's wrong," with a look of outraged honor; "and besides, how should Kerry know? It's not her grandpa, is it? Do you know Kerry?" Then the little face saddened all at once. "Oh, I forgot—poor Kerry."
"Poor Kerry?"
"I used to go and see her. You go up the road, and then on and on and on until you come to some children, and then on and on and on until you get to a little boy—and then you're there."
"Won't you sing, sweetheart?"
"I'll sing grandpa's song."
"Grandpa's?"
"Yes, the one he likes."
Then the little maiden's dimpled face smoothened out, and her simple eyes turned gravely upward as she began to sing:
"O, Myle Charaine, where got you your gold?
Lone, lone, you have left me here.
O, not in the curragh, deep under the mold,
Lone, lone, and void of cheer."
It was the favorite song of his own boyish days; and while the little maiden sang it seemed to the crime-stained man who gazed through a dim haze into her cherub face, that the voice of her dead father had gone into her voice. He listened while he could, and when the tears welled up to his eyes, with his horny hands he drew her fair head down to his heaving breast, and sobbed beneath his breath, "Ailee ven, Ailee ven."
The little maiden stopped in her song to look up in bewilderment at the bony, wet face that was stooping over her.
At that moment the door of the room opened, and the Bishop entered noiselessly. A moment he stood on the threshold, with a look of perplexity. Then he made a few halting steps, and said:
"My eyes are not what they were, sir, and I see there is no light but the firelight; but I presume you are the good Father Dalby?" Daniel Mylrea fell to his knees at the Bishop's feet.
"I come from him," he answered.
"Is he not coming himself?"
"He can not come. He charged me with a message to you."
"You are very welcome. My niece will be home presently. Be seated, sir."
Daniel Mylrea did not sit, but continued to stand before his father, with head held down. After a moment he spoke again.
"Father Dalby," he said, "is dead."
The Bishop sunk to his chair. "When—when—"
"He died the better part of a month ago."
The Bishop rose to his feet.
"He was in this island but yesterday."
"He bade me tell you that he had fulfilled his pledge to you and come to the island, but died by the visitation of God the same night whereon he landed here."
The Bishop put one hand to his forehead.
"Sir," he said, "my hearing is also failing me, for, as you see, I am an old man now, and besides, I have had trouble in my time. Perhaps, sir, I did not hear you aright?"
Then Daniel Mylrea told in few words the story of the priest's accident and death, and how the man at whose house he died had made bold to take the good priest's mission upon himself.
The Bishop listened with visible pain, and for a while said nothing. Then, speaking in a faltering voice, with breath that came quickly, he asked who the other man had been. "For the good man has been a blessing to us," he added, nervously.
To this question there was no reply, and he asked again:
"Who?"
"Myself."
The Bishop lifted with trembling fingers his horn-bridged spectacles to his eyes.
"Your voice is strangely familiar," he said. "What is your name?"
Again there was no answer.
"Give me your name, sir—that I may pray of God to bless you."
Still there was no answer.
"Let me remember it in my prayers."
Then in a breaking voice Daniel Mylrea replied:
"In your prayers my poor name has never been forgotten."
At that the Bishop tottered a pace backward.
"Light," he said, faintly. "More light."
He touched a bell on the table, and sank quietly into his chair. Daniel Mylrea fell to his knees at the Bishop's feet.
"Father," he said in a fervent whisper, and put his lips to the Bishop's hand.
The door was opened, and a servant entered with candles. At the same moment Daniel Mylrea stepped quickly out of the room.
Then the little maiden leaped from the floor to the Bishop's side.
"Grandpa, grandpa! Oh, what has happened to grandpa?" she cried.
The Bishop's head had dropped into his breast and he had fainted. When he opened his eyes in consciousness Mona was bathing his forehead and damping his lips.
"My child," he said, nervously, "one has come back to us from the dead."
And Mona answered him with the thought that was now uppermost in her mind:
"Dear uncle," she said, "my poor father died half an hour ago."