"In Dublin," he answered curtly.
"In Dublin—and you here?" cried Nellie in dismay.
"Because she sent me," he replied.
"What is it, Hamish? What is it?" faltered Nellie, struggling with a sense of some new and terrible misfortune impending over her.
"She is sore sick—sick even unto death," Hamish reluctantly replied. He could not bring himself to utter the terrible truth as yet.
Nellie stood for a moment mute with terror. She read upon her foster-brother's face that worse news than even this was about to follow; but when she would have asked what it was, courage and voice completely failed her. She knew it, however, soon enough. From his seat by the door of the tower, Lord Netterville had caught a glimpse of Hamish, and came down at once to greet him. Excitement seemed for one brief moment to have restored all his faculties, and he cried out eagerly:
"You here, good Hamish! I am heartily glad to see you! And what news bring you from Netterville? How goes my lady daughter? Ill, do you say—sore stricken? Nay, man, remember that she is still but young. It cannot surely be an illness unto death?"
"Yea, but it is, my lord," said Hamish, speaking almost roughly in his agony. "Death, and nothing short of death, as surely as that I am here to say it."
"Art thou a prophet?" asked Roger, bending his dark brows upon him, and half tempted to suspect a snare. "Art thou a prophet, that thou darest to speak thus confidently of the future?"