“What do you mean by a runaway?” she replied; “of course she is running away from her brute of a father, and I am goin' with her.”
“But isn't she goin' wid somebody else?” he inquired.
“No,” replied Alley; “I know where she is goin'; but she is goin' wid nobody but myself.”
“Ah, Alley,” replied Pat, shrewdly, “I see she has kept you in the dark; but I don't blame her. Only, if you can keep a secret, so can I.”
“Pat,” said she, “desire the coachman to stop at the white gate, where two faymales will be waitin' for it, and let the guard come down and open the door for us; so that we won't have occasion to spake. It's aisy to know one's voice, Pat.”
“I'll manage it all,” said Pat; “make your mind aisy—and what is more, I'll not breathe a syllable to mortual man, woman, or child about it. That would be an ungrateful return for her kindness to our family. May God bless her, and grant her happiness, and that's the worst I wish her.”
The baronet, in the course of that evening, was sitting in his dining-room alone, a bottle of Madeira before him, for indeed it is necessary to say, that although unsocial and inhospitable, he nevertheless indulged pretty freely in wine. He appeared moody, and gulped down the Madeira as a man who wished either to sustain his mind against care, or absolutely to drown memory, and probably the force of conscience. At length, with a flushed face, and a voice made more deep and stern by his potations, and the reflections they excited, he rang the bell, and in a moment the butler appeared.
“Is Gillespie in the house, Gibson?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Send him up.”