Peter glared at his erstwhile friend and fellow-philosopher. “You’re the fool, Hennessy. What under heaven can I do? What could any man do in my place?”
“Fight for her. Can’t you see the man has her possessed? What an’ how Hennessy hasn’t the wits to make out, but ye have. Search out her throuble same as she searched out yours, an’ make her whole an’ sweet an’ shinin’ again.” Hennessy laid two gnarled, brown hands on Peter’s shoulder while he peered up at him with eyes full of appeal. “Ye’ve heard naught to shake your faith in the lass? Ye believe in her—aye?”
“Good God! man, of course I believe in her! I’d believe in her if all the tongues in the world wagged till doomsday. But what else can I do? Hang around this old hotbed of gossip and listen and listen, powerless to cram the truth down their throats because I don’t know it?” Peter shot out a sudden hand and gripped Hennessy’s. “For the love of your blessed Saint Patrick, stand up like a man there, Hennessy, and tell me what was the truth?”
For a moment Hennessy’s eyes shifted; he whistled his breath in and out in staccato jerks; then his gaze came back to Peter and he eyed him steadily. “Son, I’m knowin’ no more than when I first saw ye.”
“You believe in her?”
Hennessy pulled his hand free and shook his fist in Peter’s face. “Bad scran to ye for thinkin’ aught else. ’Tis God’s truth I’m tellin’ ye, Mr. Peter. I’m knowin’ no more than them blitherin’ tongues say, but I’d pray our lass into heaven wi’ my dyin’ breath if I could.”
Peter smiled. “You’d be doing better to pray her out of this miserable little purgatory right here. If she belonged to me, Hennessy—”
“I wish to God she did, sir! But that’s what ye can fight for—make her belong.”
“Easier said than done. Since Doctor Brainard came I can’t get her to see me. Read that!” Peter pulled out of his pocket a tiny folded note and handed it to the swan-keeper. It was deciphered with much labor and read with troubled seriousness.