I had fought against our love; but Parnell would not fight, and I was alone. I had urged my children and his work; but he answered me: "For good or ill, I am your husband, your lover, your children, your all. And I will give my life to Ireland, but to you I give my love, whether it be your heaven or your hell. It is destiny. When I first looked into your eyes I knew."
When Willie arrived so suddenly at Eltham Mr. Parnell was not there, but Willie went into his room, and finding his portmanteau, sent it to London, and left my house, declaring he would challenge Parnell to fight a duel and would shoot him.
"My dear Mrs. O'Shea," wrote Parnell from London on the 7th of January, "will you kindly ask Captain O'Shea where he left my luggage? I inquired at both parcel office, cloak-room, and this hotel at Charing Cross to-day, and they were not to be found."
Willie later challenged Parnell, sending The O'Gorman Mahon to him as his second; but the duel was not fought. My sister, Mrs. Steele, came down to see me, and patched up a peace between myself and Willie; and Mr. Parnell, while making arrangements to go abroad to meet Willie, explained to him that he (Parnell) must have a medium of communication between the Government and himself, that Mrs. O'Shea had kindly undertaken the office for him, and, as this would render negotiations possible and safe, he trusted that Willie would make no objection to his meeting her after the duel.
"I replied to Captain O'Shea's note yesterday," writes Parnell, "and sent my reply by a careful messenger to the Salisbury Club; and it must be waiting him there.
"He has just written me a very insulting letter, and I shall be obliged to send a friend to him if I do not have a satisfactory reply to a second note I have just sent him."
Willie then thought he had been too hasty in his action, and, knowing I had become immersed in the Irish cause, merely made the condition that Mr. Parnell should not stay at Eltham.
From the date of this bitter quarrel Parnell and I were one, without further scruple, without fear, and without remorse.
The following are "cypher" letters of private messages to me bearing upon the matter of the threatened duel:—