This was the last entry in the book, and Nugent had some difficulty in reading it, as the writing was weak and the ink had faded. The pages were rubbed and soiled, and the leaves were dog’s-eared, but none had been torn out, and, considering its age and the ill-usage it had probably received, the book was in very good condition.
“You see,” Nugent said, when he had finished reading, “your father certainly survived your grandfather, and it is very easy to see why your uncle was anxious for people to believe the contrary. He knew your mother was a long way off, and that there was no one here to ask any inconvenient questions. The famine had made most people leave the country. I believe my father was the only person who made any trouble about it.”
“Yes, yes,” I said excitedly, remembering my meeting with O’Neill on the way home from Rathbarry; “he said something to me about it once. Go on.”
“Well,” went on Nugent, with, as I now think, some pride and pleasure in the office of elucidator, “as a matter of fact, your father probably died on the 11th or 12th, and I must say it looks as if there had been some foul play about it. Your uncle’s object was of course to settle things so as to be able to assert that your father had died before your grandfather, and had been buried in Cork. I haven’t a doubt that he and Moll managed to get his body out through that French window, and that then they carried it between them to Poul-na-coppal, and put it in there, where they knew it would never be found or thought of.”
“Oh, that explains——” I began; but Nugent was now too interested in what he was saying to stop.
“Of course, he may have died naturally, but I am bound to say I don’t think he did. I should say that that old madwoman was quite capable, then, of putting a pillow over a sick man’s face, if she had any reason for doing so——”
“Stop!” I cried, interrupting him. “I remember now that I thought she wanted to do that very thing to me, the night she came into my room.”
Nugent’s clear exposition broke down.
“My darling,” he said, catching me in his arms again, “I don’t know how you ever lived through that awful time, all alone, with no one to stand by you; and to think that if I hadn’t been fool enough to believe that old blackguard——”
“Don’t say anything against him,” I said, rather indistinctly, by reason of my face being hidden in the collar of his coat. “It’s all over now, and I shouldn’t mind anything—only for poor Willy. You must write to him. Tell him that nothing would ever induce me to have Durrus, if it was mine fifty times over; tell him that for my sake he must abide by his father’s will, and not waken up a thing that is over now and done with; tell him that I beg of him to come home again——”