‘MADEMOISELLE KOSTALERGI,—You once rendered me a great service—not alone at some hazard to yourself, but by doing what must have cost you sorely. It is now my turn; and if the act of repayment is not equal to the original debt, let me ask you to believe that it taxes my strength even more than your generosity once taxed your own.
‘I came here a few days since in the hope that I might see you before I leave Ireland for ever; and while waiting for some fortunate chance, I learned that you were betrothed and to be married to the young gentleman who lies ill at Kilgobbin, and whose approaching trial at the assizes is now the subject of so much discussion. I will not tell you—I have no right to tell you—the deep misery with which these tidings filled me. It was no use to teach my heart how vain and impossible were all my hopes with regard to you. It was to no purpose that I could repeat over aloud to myself how hopeless my pretensions must be. My love for you had become a religion, and what I could deny to a hope, I could still believe. Take that hope away, and I could not imagine how I should face my daily life, how interest myself in its ambitions, and even care to live on.
‘These sad confessions cannot offend you, coming from one even as humble as I am. They are all that are left me for consolation—they will soon be all I shall have for memory. The little lamp in the lowly shrine comforts the kneeling worshipper far more than it honours the saint; and the love I bear you is such as this. Forgive me if I have dared these utterances. To save him with whose fortunes your own are to be bound up became at once my object; and as I knew with what ingenuity and craft his ruin had been compassed, it required all my efforts to baffle his enemies. The National press and the National party have made a great cause of this trial, and determined that tenant-right should be vindicated in the person of this man Gill.
‘I have seen enough of what is intended here to be aware what mischief may be worked by hard swearing, a violent press, and a jury not insensible to public opinion—evils, if you like, but evils that are less of our own growing than the curse ill-government has brought upon us. It has been decided in certain councils—whose decrees are seldom gainsaid—that an example shall be made of Captain Gorman O’Shea, and that no effort shall be spared to make his case a terror and a warning to Irish landowners; how they attempt by ancient process of law to subvert the concessions we have wrung from our tyrants.
‘A jury to find him guilty will be sworn; and let us see the judge—in defiance of a verdict given from the jury-box, without a moment’s hesitation or the shadow of dissent—let us see the judge who will dare to diminish the severity of the sentence. This is the language, these are the very words of those who have more of the rule of Ireland in their hands than the haughty gentlemen, honourable and right honourable, who sit at Whitehall.
‘I have heard this opinion too often of late to doubt how much it is a fixed determination of the party; and until now—until I came here, and learned what interest his fate could have for me—I offered no opposition to these reasonings. Since then I have bestirred myself actively. I have addressed the committee here who have taken charge of the prosecution; I have written to the editors of the chief newspapers; I have even made a direct appeal to the leading counsel for the prosecution, and tried to persuade them that a victory here might cost us more than a defeat, and that the country at large, who submit with difficulty to the verdict of absolving juries, will rise with indignation at this evidence of a jury prepared to exercise a vindictive power, and actually make the law the agent of reprisal. I have failed in all—utterly failed. Some reproach me as faint-hearted and craven; some condescend to treat me as merely mistaken and misguided; and some are bold enough to hint that, though as a military authority I stand without rivalry, as a purely political adviser, my counsels are open to dispute.
‘I have still a power, however, through the organisation of which I am a chief; and by this power I have ordered Gill to appear before me, and in obedience to my commands, he will sail this night for America. With him will also leave the two other important witnesses in this cause; so that the only evidence against Captain O’Shea will be some of those against whom he has himself instituted a cross charge for assault. That the prosecution can be carried on with such testimony need not be feared. Our press will denounce the infamous arts by which these witnesses have been tampered with, and justice has been defeated. The insults they may hurl at our oppressors—for once unjustly—will furnish matter for the Opposition journals to inveigh against our present Government, and some good may come even of this. At all events, I shall have accomplished what I sought. I shall have saved from a prison the man I hate most on earth, the man who, robbing me of what never could be mine, robs me of every hope, of every ambition, making my love as worthless as my life! Have I not repaid you? Ask your heart which of us has done more for the other?
‘The contract on which Gill based his right as a tenant, and which would have sustained his action, is now in my hands; and I will—if you permit me—place it in yours. This may appear an ingenious device to secure a meeting with you; but though I long to see you once more, were it but a minute, I would not compass it by a fraud. If, then, you will not see me, I shall address the packet to you through the post.
‘I have finished. I have told you what it most concerns you to know, and what chiefly regards your happiness. I have done this as coldly and impassively, I hope, as though I had no other part in the narrative than that of the friend whose friendship had a blessed office. I have not told you of the beating heart that hangs over this paper, nor will I darken one bright moment of your fortune by the gloom of mine. If you will write me one line—a farewell if it must be—send it to the care of Adam Cobb, “Cross Keys,” Moate, where I shall find it up to Thursday next. If—and oh! how shall I bless you for it—if you will consent to see me, to say one word, to let me look on you once more, I shall go into my banishment with a bolder heart, as men go into battle with an amulet. DANIEL DONOGAN.’
‘Shall I show this to Kate?’ was the first thought of Nina as she laid the letter down. ‘Is it a breach of confidence to let another than myself read these lines? Assuredly they were meant for my eyes alone. Poor fellow!’ said she, once more aloud. ‘It was very noble in him to do this for one he could not but regard as a rival.’ And then she asked herself how far it might consist with honour to derive benefit from his mistake—since mistake it was—in believing O’Shea was her lover, and to be her future husband.