"No, father," Peg cried passionately, "that we won't. Whatever the road we'll thravel it together."
"I'll think it out by meself, Peg. Lave me for a while—alone. I want to think it out by meself—alone."
"If it's separation ye're thinkin' of, make up yer mind to one thing—that I'LL never lave YOU. Never."
"Take 'MICHAEL' out for a spell and come back in half an hour and in the meanwhile I'll bate it all out in me mind."
She bent down and straightened the furrows in his forehead with the tips of her fingers, and kissed him and then whistled to the wistful "MICHAEL" and together they went running down the street toward the little patch of green where the children played, and amongst whom "MICHAEL" was a prime favourite.
Sitting, his head in his hands, his eyes staring into the past, O'Connell was facing the second great tragedy of his life.
CHAPTER II
WE MEET AN OLD FRIEND AFTER MANY YEARS
While O'Connell sat there in that little room in New York trying to decide Peg's fate, a man, who had played some considerable part in O'Connell's life, lay, in a splendidly furnished room in a mansion in the West End of London—dying.