O'Donovan took the beloved one in his arms, and, in the long embrace which ensued, seldom were love and sorrow so singularly and mournfully blended.
“I don't want to prevent you from cryin' a colleen machree; for I know it will lighten an' aise your heart,” said Honor; “but remimber your wakeness an' your poor health; an', Connor avourneen, don't you—if you love her—don't forget the state her health's in either.”
“Mother, mother, you know it's the last time I'll ever look upon my Una's face again,” he exclaimed. “Oh, well may I be loath an' unwillin' to part with her. You'll think of me, my darlin' life, when I'm gone—not as a guilty man, Una dear, but as one that if he ever committed a crime, it was lovin' you an' bringin' you to this unhappy state.”
“God sees my heart this day,” she replied—and she spoke with difficulty—“that I could and would have travelled over the world; borne joy and sorrow, hardship and distress—good fortune and bad—all happily, if you had been by my side—if you had not been taken from me. Oh, Connor, Connor, you may well pity your Una—for yours I am and was—another's I never will be. You are entering into scenes that will relieve you by their novelty—that will force you to think of other things and of other persons than those you've left behind you; but oh, what Can I look upon that will not fill my heart with despair and sorrow, by reminding me of you and your affection?”
“Fareer gair,” exclaimed the mother, speaking involuntarily aloud, and interrupting her own words with sobs of bitter anguish—“Fareer gair, ma colleen dhas, but that's the heavy truth with us all. Oh, the ould man—the ould man's heart will break all out, when he looks upon the place, an' everything else that our boy left behind him.”
“Dear Una,” said Connor, “you know that we're partin' now forever.”
“My breaking heart tells me that,” she replied. “I would give the wealth of the world that it was not so—I would—I would.”
“Listen to me, my own life. You must not let love for me lie so heavy upon your heart. Go out and keep your mind employed upon other thoughts—by degrees you'll forget—no, I don't think you could altogether forget me—me—the first, Una, you ever loved.”
“And the last, Connor—the last I ever will love.”