“Let your own good heart guide you for that,” cried Mary; “all I ask is that you should see him and be with him. I have pledged myself for your coming, and you will not dishonor my words to one on his death-bed.”
“And I 'll be an outcast for it. Tom will drive me from the door and never see me again. I know it,—I know him!”
“You are wrong, Joan Landy.”
“Joan!—who dares to call me Joan Landy when I'm Mrs. Magennis of Barnagheela? and if I'm not your equal, I 'm as good as any other in the barony. Was it to insult me you came here to-night, to bring up to me who I am and where I came from? That 's the errand that brought you through the storm! Ay,” cried she, lashed to a wilder passion by her own words,—“ay! ay! and if you and yours had their will we 'd not have the roof to shelter us this night. It 's only to-day that we won the trial against you.”
“Whatever my errand here this night,” said Mary, with a calm dignity, “it was meant to serve and not insult you. I know, as well as your bitterest words can tell me, that this is not my place; but I know, too, if from yielding to my selfish pride I had refused your old grandfather this last request, it had been many a year of bitter reproach to me.”
“Oh, you 'll break my heart, you will, you will!” cried Joan, bitterly. “You 'll turn the only one that's left against me, and I 'll be alone in the world.”
“Come with me this night, and whatever happen I 'll befriend you,” said Mary.
“And not desert me because I 'm what I am?”
“Never, Joan, never!”