"At least it can no longer shelter me. News arrived to-day that the soul of this ill-starred enterprize—Emmett—has perished by legal murder in Dublin. The gibbet awaits all those of his followers who may be arrested. Certain intelligence has reached me that my assumed name and character are no longer of avail—the local authorities are aware of my real offences. If I do not instantly escape, before the coming midnight I shall be a prisoner."
"I expected this," said Katey, half musingly; "it could not be otherwise; you yourself anticipated it. And yet I have been to Cahill's," she added, looking down, "to—to—leave a book, for I was anxious, and he seems to know nothing of your danger."
"I have only just learned it myself, and have hastened to seek you; the mine at our feet is about to be sprung, and"——
"So ends your life of ignoble disguise and mine of duplicity. We should both be thankful."
"One of us at least—thankful as the wrecked seaman, when the plank he clings to splits and sinks him within sight of shore. But time presses; I have come to test the truth of your character. Once more—are you ready?"
"I am indeed—ready to part this instant. I knew it should be so; it was a pleasure to have known you, but I am resigned—ready. Fly! O lose not a single moment; the moon is rising. Farewell, and fly!"
"Not without you! Girl, you affect to misunderstand me; or have you forgotten those promises of friendship and faith, even to death, that you have made me so often and so lately?"
"Promises—faith?" cried his startled companion; "even admitting those playful assurances of a wild, country girl's friendship, were a compact, could you be cruel enough to insist upon my fulfilling it in this desperate hour?"
"Then all the interest you have expressed hitherto in my fate," pursued the stranger; "the sympathy you have led me to think you felt for one, suffering as I have suffered in the cause of my unhappy country—the hopes excited in this heart when, as I pictured a delighted life passed with you, and love, and freedom, beyond the Atlantic, you listened on, with a consenting smile—all this was but pastime for your vacant hours?"
"It was wrong, I know," replied Katey yieldingly; "yet Heaven knows it was no pastime. I found you in concealment—a fugitive—hunted, you told me, by the laws for your exertions in the cause of a country I have been taught by you to deem misgoverned; I saw you superior to all those around you; you complained of cheerlessness and solitude, of ill health—I brought you books, music, all that I could judge likely to lighten your hours, and dearly am I punished for it."