“Who says so?”
“Was not that the meaning of the letter?”
“It was not—the devil a bit of it! I know well what was in it, though I didn’t read it. It was to ask Sir Within Wardle to send her some money to pay for the defence of her grandfather, that’s to be tried for murder next Tuesday week. It nearly broke her heart to stoop to it, but I made her do it. She called it a shame and a disgrace, and the tears ran down her face; and, by my soul, it’s not a trifle would make the same young lady cry!”
“After all, the intention is to open a way to come back here?”
“I don’t believe it.”
“I suspect, Master O’Rorke, this is rather a pleasanter place to live in than the Arran Islands.”
“So it is; there’s no doubt of that! But she is young, and thinks more about her pride than her profit—not to say that she comes of a stock that’s as haughty in their own wild way as ever a peer in the land.”
“There never was a better bait to catch that old man there than this same pride. She has just hit upon the key to move him. What did he say when he read the letter?”
“He couldn’t speak for a while, but kept wiping his eyes and trembling all over.”
“And then?”