"What more could we do if we went to Dublin, except listen to gossip, read the papers and be jarred every moment? My dear, our best place is here. If the spending of money could be of any use to him, I'd spend it —indeed I would; but since it can't be of any use, we must stay in our own home. Of one thing I'm sure—if Dyck Calhoun killed Erris Boyne, Boyne deserved it. Of one thing I'm certain beyond all else—it was no murder. Mr. Calhoun wasn't a man to murder any one. I don't believe"— her voice became passionate—"he murdered, and I don't believe he will be hanged."
The girl looked at her mother with surprise. "Oh, dearest, dearest!" she said. "I believe you do care for him. Is it because he has no mother, and you have no son."
"It may be so, beloved."
Sheila swept her arms around her mother's neck and drew the fine head to her breast.
At that moment they heard the clatter of hoofs, and presently they saw a horse and rider pass the window.
"It's a government messenger, mother," Sheila said.
As Sheila said, it was a government messenger, bearing a packet to Mrs. Llyn—a letter from her brother in America, whom she had not seen for many years.
The brother, Bryan Llyn, had gone out there as a young man before the Revolutionary War. He had prospered, taking sides against England in the war, and become a man of importance in the schemes of the new republican government. Only occasionally had letters come from him to his sister, and for nearly eleven years she had not had a single word from him.
When she opened the packet now, she felt it would help to solve—she knew not how—the trouble between herself and her daughter. The letter had been sent to a firm in Dublin with which Bryan Llyn had done business, with instructions that it should be forwarded to his sister. It had reached the hands of a government official, who was a brother of a member of the firm, and he had used the government messenger, who was going upon other business to Limerick, to forward it with a friendly covering note, which ended with the words:
The recent tragedy you have no doubt seen in the papers must have shocked you; but to those who know the inside the end was inevitable, though there are many who do not think Calhoun is guilty. I am one of them. Nevertheless, it will go hard with him, as the evidence is strong against him. He comes from your part of the country, and you will be concerned, of course.