‘Do I know him?’ echoed Peebles. ‘Ay, I know him fine, the drunken scoundrel! A’body kens him for miles round. But what depends on my knowing Patrick Blake, lassie?’
‘Much may depend on it,’ said Moya. ‘Desmond’s own future may depend on it.’
‘Desmond’s future? Why, what in the name of a’ that’s meaning can Pat Blake hae to do wi’ Desmond’s future?’
‘Was Mr. Blake,’ asked Moya slowly, and with an amount of effort which helped the old man to understand the importance she attached to the answer—‘was Mr. Blake ever a clerk in holy orders?’
Peebles stared at her in sheer bewilderment. Had she asked if he himself had ever been Pope of Rome, the question could hardly have seemed more ludicrous; but there was a painful solemnity in her manner which would have stayed a man less grave than he from laughter.
‘Holy orders!’ he muttered. ‘Holy orders! Patrick Blake! By my soul, but it’s an odd question!’
‘Not under that name, I mane, but another—Ryan O’Connor.’
‘He’s borne no name but Patrick Blake that I ever kenned o’,’ said Peebles, still groping painfully for any meaning in Moya’s queries. ‘She’s haverin’,’ he muttered to himself; but the calm intentness of Moya’s glance, though contradicted by the heaving bosom and irregular breath with which she spoke, did not accord with the explanation. ‘What if he ever was a priest under that or any other name?’ he asked at last.
‘I was married to Lord Kilpatrick,’ said Moya, ‘by a man calling himself the Reverend Father Ryan O’Connor.’
‘Lord guide us!’ ejaculated the old Scot. ‘And do ye think ’Twas Patrick Blake?’