As soon as the car was gone from the door, she hurried up stairs, put on her bonnet and cloak, took a letter which she had already prepared, and opening the door of Mrs. McKeon's own room, put it on the table. She then crept noiselessly down stairs, opened the front door, and passed into the street, without having been seen or heard by either of the servants, who were alone left with her in the house. The following is the letter, which, to her great grief and surprise, Mrs. McKeon found on her table when she returned:—
Dear Mrs. McKeon,
It is because I know you'd never let me go back to Ballycloran, that I've now gone away without telling you what I was going to do. Pray don't be angry with me. Indeed I'm very unhappy; but I should be worse if you were to be angry with me. I'm only a bother and a throuble to you here, and I hav'n't spirits left even to let you see how very much obliged I am to you for all your throuble; but indeed I am in my heart, my dear Mrs. McKeon, both to you and to dear Lyddy and Louey, who have been so very kind to me. It is a deal better for me to be at home with my father; my heart's nearly broken with all I've gone through; but he'll bear with me, for he's used to me. Give my compliments to Doctor Blake. Pray beg him not to come to Ballycloran. I am in his debt a great deal already, and how will I ever pay him? Besides, I'm a deal better now, as you see, in health; it's only the heart now that ails me. Give my kind love to Lyddy and Louey. I felt their kindness when the sorrow within me wouldn't let me tell them so. Now good bye, dear Mrs. McKeon; don't be throubling yourself to come to Ballycloran; it'll be a poor place now. I'll send Katty for the things.
I remain, dear Mrs. McKeon,
Very, very faithfully yours,Feemy.
P.S.—Indeed—indeed—it isn't the case, what you were saying.
When Mrs. McKeon found the letter on her return, she was greatly vexed; but she could do nothing; she couldn't go to Ballycloran and fetch Feemy by force. The falsehood with which the letter concluded was not altogether disbelieved; but still she felt by no means certain that her former suspicions were not true, and if so, perhaps it was better for all parties that Feemy should be at home. She determined to call at Ballycloran when Feemy might be supposed to have settled herself, and content herself for the present with hearing from the girl who came for the clothes that she had got home safe.
When Father John called on the Saturday, she talked over the subject as fully with him as she could without alluding to the matter respecting which she was so much in doubt. He declared his intention of seeing Feemy on the following Monday, and of speaking to her strongly on the subject of the trial which was so soon coming on; and he begged Mrs. McKeon to do the same afterwards—as perhaps having become latterly used to her interference, Feemy might bear from her what she had to be told, with more patience than she would from himself.
"Indeed I will, Father John, but do you be gentle with her. She's broken-hearted now; you'll find her very different from the hot-headed creature she was before her sorrows began."
"I fear she is—I fear she is; but, Mrs. McKeon, has she ever shown a feeling of regard—a spark of interest, for her noble brother?—it's that so annoys me in Feemy; I could feel for her—weep for her—and forgive her with all my heart—all but that."
"Ah, Father John," answered the lady; "it's not for me to preach to you; but where would we all be at the last, if our Judge should say to us, 'I can forgive you all but that?'"
"God forbid I should judge her; God forbid I should limit that to her, which I so much need myself. But isn't her heart hardened against her brother? Oh, if you could have seen him as I have done this morning—if you could believe how softened is his heart! He had never much false pride in it—it is nearly all gone now! If you could have heard how warmly, how affectionately he asks after the sister that won't mention his name; if you could know how much more anxious he is on her account and his father's, than on his own, Feemy's coldness and repugnance would strike you as it does me. I'm afraid her chief sorrow is still for the robber that would have destroyed her, and has destroyed her brother."
"Of course it is, Father John—and so it should be. I'm a woman and a mother, and you may take my word respecting a woman's heart. No wife could love her husband more truly than Feemy loved that man: unworthy as he was, he was all in all to her. Would it not, therefore, show more heartlessness in her to forget him that is now dead, than the brother who killed him? Of course she loved him better than her brother, as every woman loves the man she does love better than all the world. How can she forget him? Be gentle to her, Father John, and I think she will do what you desire."
Father John promised that he would comply with Mrs. McKeon's advice, and he was as good as his word.