“There will always be the respectful admiration that beauty exacts,” replied Paul, bowing courteously, “but I can answer for the delicacy of Coleraine as for my own.”
If this assurance was not quite as satisfactory to the ladies as Mr. Dempsey might have fancied it ought to be, there was really no alternative; they knew nothing of the country, which side to direct their steps, or whither to seek shelter; besides, until they had communicated with Bicknell, they could not with safety leave the neighborhood to which all their letters were addressed.
It was then soon determined to accept Mr. Dempsey's suggestion and safe-conduct, and leaving Tate for the present to watch over such of their effects as they could not conveniently carry with them, to set out for Coleraine. The arrangements were made as speedily as the resolve, and day had scarcely dawned ere they quitted “The Corvy.”
CHAPTER XX. MR. HEFFERNAN OUT-MANOEUVRED
It was on the very same evening that witnessed these events, that Lord Castlereagh was conducting Mr. Con Heffernan to his hotel, after a London dinner-party. The late Secretary for Ireland had himself volunteered the politeness, anxious to hear some tidings of people and events which, in the busy atmosphere of a crowded society, were unattainable. He speedily ran over a catalogue of former friends and acquaintances, learning, with that surprise with which successful men always regard their less fortunate contemporaries, that this one was still where he had left him, and that the other jogged on his daily road as before, when he suddenly asked,—
“And the Darcys, what of them?”
Heffernan shrugged his shoulders without speaking.
“I am sorry for it,” resumed the other; “sorry for the gallant old Knight himself, and sorry for a state of society in which such changes are assumed as evidences of progress and prosperity. These upstart Hickmans are not the elements of which a gentry can be formed.”
“O'Reilly still looks to you for the baronetcy, my Lord,” replied Heffernan, with a half-sneer. “You have him with or against you on that condition,—at least, so I hear.”