The Fra bent his head, and for some minutes continued to pray with great fervour, then turning to Kelly, said: * If it’s dying he is, there’s no good in disturbing his last moments; but if he was to get well enough to hear it, Laurence, will you promise to let me have two or three minutes beside his bed? Will you, at least* ask him if he ‘d see Fra Luke? He ‘ll know why himself.’
‘My poor fellow,’ said Kelly kindly, ‘like all the world, you fancy that the things which touch yourself must be nearest to the hearts of others. I don’t want to learn your secret, Luke—Heaven knows I have more than I wish for in my keeping already!—but take my word for it, the Prince has cares enough on his mind without your asking him to hear yours.’
‘Will you give him this, then,’ said the Fra, handing him the bag with the money; ‘there’s a hundred crowns in it just as he gave it to me, Monday was a fortnight. Tell him that—‘here he stopped and wiped his forehead, in confusion of thought; ‘tell him that it ‘s not wanting any more for—for what he knows; that it’s all over now; not that he’s dead, though—God be praised!—but what am I saying? Oh dear! oh dear! after my swearing never to speak of him!’
‘You are safe with me, Luke, depend on that. Only, as to the money, take my advice, and just keep it. He ‘ll never want to hear more of it. Many a hundred crowns have left this on a worse errand, whatever be its fate.’
‘I wouldn’t, to save my life! I wouldn’t, if it was to keep me from the galleys!’
‘Have your own way, then,’ said Kelly sharply; ‘I must not loiter here’; and so saying, took the bag from the friar’s hand, and moved over toward where O’Sullivan was standing.
‘Come along home with me, friar,’ said O’Sullivan, as Kelly wished them good-night; ‘I’ll give you a glass of Vermouth, and we ‘ll have a talk about the old country.’
CHAPTER X. GABRIEL DE———
‘I wish I knew how I could ever repay you, Pippo, for all your kindness to me,’ said Gerald, as he sat one fine evening with the old man at the door; ‘but when I tell you that I am as poor and as friendless in the world as on that same night when Signor Gabriel found me beside the lake——’