CHAPTER X.
LEX TALIONIS.
“And now Love sang; but his was such a song,
So meshed with half-remembrance hard to free.”
The tears crept to my eyes, and, standing there unshed, blurred the closely written lines, as I read them, and heard in every sentence Willy’s voice telling me the miserable story. Nugent was still turning over the leaves of the book when I finished the letter.
“I can’t make this out,” he said. “It is a diary of your father’s for the year 185—, and the curious thing is that it seems from it that he died at Durrus instead of in Cork.”
“Here,” I said helplessly, handing him the letter, “read this, and tell me what it all means.”
He put the diary into my hand, but half drew it back again.
“You ought not to look at it,” he said. “You’re not fit to stand all this trouble.”
“I must see it,” I said agitatedly. “Don’t stop me, Nugent.”