"Keep still!" he muttered, in a horrible whisper.
And then, whether it were by mistake that his finger pulled the trigger or, happening on some odd chance, he thought he had found the sight at once, however it was, he fired. Immediately the rabbit darted back into the undergrowth, and Dandy leapt forward, barking and jumping wildly as though he were responsible for the whole affair. The poor old gentleman blew the smoke disconsolately down the barrel of his gun.
"Must have hit him," said he, "but I can't understand how the deuce he got away."
So firmly, moreover, did he believe it that he tried to set Dandy searching for the poor little beast.
"Fetch him! Fetch him!" said he, and Dandy jumped around from one rabbit-hole to another till he almost made me giddy.
"It was not an easy shot," said I, for I must confess I felt sorry for him. I knew he would never have fired that last cartridge had it not been for me.
"No, it was not easy," he agreed. "I had to be very quick," and then, sorrowfully, he took out the empty cartridge-case. I watched him secretly as he slipped it into the pocket of his coat.
We walked on together up to the village, and all the time, as I knew to be inevitable, he entertained me with his story of the old queen's reception in Dublin. At his own gate we parted, though to this day I scarcely know how I escaped. His desire that I should meet his sister, Mrs. Quigley, was expressed in such inordinate terms of flattery as to make my refusal tantamount to an insult. It was only the fixed determination in my mind to see Clarissa's prison once more before I left Ballysheen that made me adamant.
Why this determination had come to me is more than I can explain. I wanted to catch a last glimpse of her between those white muslin curtains to assure myself perhaps that, complete as my failure may have been, I had not shirked the duty which an unreasonable Destiny had so plainly pointed out to me. I had done my best; moreover, there was yet the slender hope that the wisdom of my words might plant a seed of doubt within her. She might yet refuse to marry him.
But there was a bitterness in that hope for me. If such an event did happen, she would never come to me in gratitude. And it is gratitude from a woman, I think, which makes a deal of difference in the color of the world. For that I had envied my electrician, because, when he gave the little nursery maid his narcissus, she must have said "Thank you." In the same way it is not because I have the faintest shadow of an idea as to how a woman should be dressed, that I would like to clothe her from head to foot. It is to see her strutting before a glass like some peacock on a garden wall, to catch the gleam of perky pleasure in her eye; it is to see her suddenly turn the last of all her peacock little thoughts to you, to hear the sudden rustle of the skirt you have bought, to feel her hand in the glove that you have paid for laid swiftly on your arm and then to hear the voice which only God and a great heart can give her, saying, "You dear old thing, and I'd nearly forgotten to thank you."