"No, no," said Mackworth. "Don't speak to me, that's a good man. Don't confuse me. I am going. You had better send Murtagh out of the room."
Father Murtagh disappeared.
"I am going," said Mackworth. "Tiernay, we were not always good friends, were we?"
"We are good friends, any way, now, brother," said Tiernay.
"Ay, ay, you are a good man. I have done a wrong. I did it for the sake of the Church partly, and partly——well, I was very fond of Cuthbert. I loved that boy, Tiernay. And I spun a web. But it has all got confused. It is on this left side which feels so heavy. They shouldn't make one's brains in two halves, should they?"
"Begorra no. It's a burning shame," said Father Tiernay, determining, like a true Irishman, to agree with every word said, and find out what was coming.
"That being the case, my dear friend," said poor Mackworth, "give me the portfolio and ink, and we will let our dear brother Butler know, de profundis clamavi, that the time is come."
Father Tiernay said, "That will be the proper course," and got him pen and ink, fully assured that another fit was coming on, and that he was wandering in his mind; but still watching to see whether he would let out anything. A true Irishman.
Mackworth let out nothing. He wrote, as steadily as he could, a letter of two lines, and put it in an envelope. Then he wrote another letter of about three lines, and enclosed the whole in a larger envelope, and closed it. Then he said to Father Tiernay, "Direct it to Butler, will you, my dear friend; you quite agree that I have done right?"
Father Tiernay said that he had done quite right; but wondered what the dickens it was all about. We soon found out. But we walked, and rode, and fished, and chatted, and played billiards, and got up charades with Lady Ascot for an audience; not often thinking of the poor paralytic priest in the lonely tower, and little dreaming of the mine which he was going to spring under our feet.