“I was.”
“Was it of her own will—at the suggestion of her own thoughts? I mean, did she write this willingly, and without a struggle?”
“That she didn’t! She wrote it just because that without it her old grandfather wouldn’t have even a chance for his life! She wrote it, crying bitterly all the time, and sobbing as if her heart was breaking.”
The old man turned away his head, but with his hand motioned to the other to cease speaking. Either O’Rorke, however, did not understand the gesture, or he unheeded it. He went on:
“‘I’d rather,’ says she, ‘see my right hand cut off, than see it write these lines,’ says she.”
“There! there!” burst in Sir Within, “that will do—that is enough—say no more of this!”
But O’Rorke, intent on finding out what had been the relations between them, and why they had been severed, in spite of all admonition, continued:
“‘Sure, Miss Kate,” says I, “it is not one that was once so kind and so generous to you will see you in trouble for a trifle like this, for of course it would be a trifle to your honour!’”
“And yet she felt it a humiliation to ask me,” said he, despondingly.
“She did, indeed! ‘For,’ says she, ‘he may refuse me.’”