"Come along, then, yer Honor."
"Stay a moment," returned the enraptured Irishman; "a year at gaze would not sate me with the beauty of this picture. How like is the fair image!" murmured the entranced young man, approaching nearer and fairly holding his breath under the influence of the moment. He stretched out his hand toward the painting with a little reverential gesture.
"Look out, sir!" said the sergeant, warningly; "the picture hangs very loose, an' the frame--"
What evil fate was it that determined its fall at that moment? There was a tremendous crash, something gave way, and the great frame dropped from its place on the wall and fell across the heavy oaken chair which stood beneath it, and the picture was impaled upon its Gothic points. The two men sprang to seize it and lift it up. Alas! it had been literally torn to pieces. The canvas had evidently been originally a defective one, for it had split in every direction. Restoration was clearly impossible.
"Good Heaven!" said the Irishman, "what a misfortune!"
"It had to come, an' it's too late to be mended now," said the sergeant, philosophically, "so we must get on."
"Very good," said O' Neill, tenderly lifting the frame, with the rags of the tattered canvas hanging to it, back against the wall; "there is nothing to keep us here now. Unlucky fool that I am, even the semblance of the original is not for me!"
CHAPTER X
[Lady Elizabeth will keep her Word]
The night fell on three of the most unhappy people in the world; yet to each had been vouchsafed a partial realization of a cherished hope. Coventry should have been luxuriating in the thought of his approaching marriage to the girl he loved; Elizabeth should have been overwhelmed with joy at the reappearance of O'Neill, after his long absence; and O'Neill during that time had asked for nothing but an opportunity to stand once more in the presence of his divinity. The desire of each had been granted, and yet all three were completely miserable.