“Would it be the same thing to you, sir, if I'd call on you there about this time to-morrow?”
“What objection have you to come now?” asked the priest. “Never put off till tomorrow what can be done to-day, is a good old proverb, and applies to things of weightier importance than belong to this world.”
“Why, then, it's a little business of a very particular nature that I have to attend to; and yet I don't know,” he added, “maybe I'll be a betther match for them afther seeing you. In the mane time,” he proceeded, addressing his wife, “if they should come here to look for me, don't say where I'm gone, nor, above all things, who I'm with. Mark that now; and tell Charley, or Ginty, whichever o' them comes, that it must be put off till to-morrow—do you mind, now?”
She merely nodded her head, by way of attention.
“Ay,” he replied, with a sardonic grin, “you'll be alive, as you were a while ago, I suppose.”
They then proceeded on their way to the Brazen Head, which they reached without any conversation worth recording.
“Now, Anthony,” began the priest, after they had seated themselves comfortably in a private room, “will you answer me truly why you refused seeing me? why you hid or absconded whenever I went to your house for the last week?”
“Bekaise I did not wish to see you, then.”
“Well, that's the truth,” said the priest, “and I know it. But why did you not wish to see me?” he inquired; “you must have had some reason for it.”
“I had my suspicions.”