“I know that is true,” said she; “but I did not expect to meet you here.”
“Mave,” he proceeded, in a voice filled with melancholy and sadness, “you acknowledged that you loved me.”
She looked at him, and that look moved him to the heart.
“I know you do love me,” he proceeded, “and now, dear Mave, the thought of that fills my heart with sorrow.”
She started slightly, and looked at him again with a good deal of surprise; but on seeing his eyes filled with tears, she also caught the contagion, and asked with deep emotion:
“Why, dear Condy? Why does my love for you make your heart sorrowful?”
“Because I have no hope,” said he—“no hope that ever you can be mine.”
Mave remained silent; for she knew the insurmountable obstacles that prevented their union; but she wept afresh.
“When I saw your father last, behind your garden, the day I struck Donnel Dhu,” Dalton proceeded, “I tould him what I then believed to be true, that my father never had a hand in your uncle's death. Mave, dear, I cannot tell a lie; nor I will not. I couldn't say as much to him now; I'm afeard that his death is on my father's sowl.”
Mave started and got pale at the words. “Great God!” she exclaimed, “don't say so, Con dear. Oh, no, no—is it your father that was always so good, an' so generous to every one that stood in need of it at his hands, an' who was also so charitable to the poor?”