What could he be doing? Was he also crushed in spirit, as weary of the world as she; wandering in search of peace? or on one of his many missions of private charity?
He had been to the Abbey in quest of her; was told by a garden-lad that she had passed through the wooden postern, and had tracked her wanderings from hut to hut.
'They are going too far!' he said abruptly, with bent brows, as he turned to walk back with her. 'Already the squireens are abroad, imitating their fellows in the north. Dublin's in a ferment. It needs but the coming of the French to settle the affair at a blow. Every magistrate has received orders to raise twenty men to preserve the peace in place of the militia, should these be ordered to the coast. But they overreach themselves. Decent people are so furious at the tactics of Lord Clare, that even the militia are dying to turn against the Government. Cassidy says so, who should know, seeing that he keeps up a friendship with the Castle. I speak to-night at the Debating Club. Look at these notes,' he added, smiling. '"Recipe to make a Rebel! Take one loyal subject uninfluenced by pension; burn his house over his head; murder his wife and babes before his eyes; march away with such plunder as you choose to save from the flames----" But what is the matter? You look ill!'
'I am leaving Dublin almost at once,' Doreen said, 'and am glad of it. If there is one power which has the gift of withering up the soul, it is treachery! I am sick of the world. Go to your brother. Tell him the cause is lost. One who held all their secrets has betrayed them--for five hundred guineas; that is their value in his eyes.'
Here the girl broke into wild laughter--she who never laughed; and Robert looked at her in surprise, with a sense of coldness, creeping. Then, with a hectic spot upon each cheek, she eased her breast with words; recounted all she knew, and much more which was conjecture, though in her perturbed state she was not aware of it. Explained that they were all dupes of Terence's false bonhomie--that he had coldly and deliberately played a part; had, as it were, eaten their bread and salt, and then stabbed them in the back. In the midst of the hideous recital, her voice choked in a great gulp, and clasping her hot face with her hands, she burst into a flood of tears.
Ardent young Robert was shocked, but not convinced. Terence! whom every one loved for his bright eyes, through which shone forth an honest soul. To whom Robert and fellow-undergraduates looked up as to a preux chevalier in the matter of grouse-shooting and the beguiling of the wily trout. He could not believe such a thing, and would not. Lord Clare was capable of any amount of lying. His ways were so tortuous that they were difficult to follow. His spies were legion, who ferreted out everything. No doubt Phil and Biddy had been watched; they had billed and cooed too loudly as they had handed the pikes over the wall. Terence was unduly heedless about money; his friends frequently declared that he didn't know its value. It was absolutely out of the question that he should suddenly be tempted to do so crafty and mean a thing. As for the delegates of the society being betrayed and their secrets known, there was nothing new in that. Had they not, months ago, been arrested at his own chambers, their papers seized, themselves arbitrarily imprisoned, and afterwards as arbitrarily released? He could not fathom the tactics of the executive, the youth was forced to confess, for their movements seemed planned to circumvent each other. The rank and file were being captured by dozens and hanged, while the commanders and organisers of the scheme were permitted to remain at large.
It was not unpleasing to Doreen to hear her cousin defended; but she shook her head.
'If the French were to come now,' she said, 'they might set things right; but then they must come in force; and Terence, having gone to Brest, would probably clinch the irresolution of Hoche, and effectually decide him not to come at all. Verily, the world and its affairs were vexation of spirit; conspiracy a disheartening game; Ireland an accursed land, foredoomed to eternal misery.'
By the wooden postern which gave access to the rosary, stood a group of peasants, who humbly bowed to Miss Wolfe, then returned to the dirge of lamentation which her appearance had interrupted.
'Jug Coyle, what is the matter?' Doreen inquired; for she recognised in a heaving heap before her the shattered remains of that lady.