Immediately after the night of its occurrence, a change began to take place in the conduct and deportment of their general acquaintances. Visitors dropped off, some from actual delicacy, and an unaffected compassion, and others from that shrinking fear of moral contagion, which is always most loudly and severely expressed by the private sinner and hypocrite. Their sister's conduct was, in fact, the topic of general discussion throughout the parish, and we need not say that such discussions usually were terminated—first in great compassion for the poor girl, and then as their virtue warmed, in as earnest denunciations of her guilt. To an indifferent person, however, without any prejudice either for or against her, it was really impossible, considering the satanic success with which the plot was managed, and the number of witnesses actually present at its accomplishment, to consider Miss M'Loughlin as free at least from gross and indefensible levity, and a most unjustifiable relaxation of female prudence, at a period when it was known she was actually engaged to another.
This certainly looked very suspicious, and we need scarcely say that a cessation of all visits, intimacy, and correspondence, immediately took place, on the part of female friends and acquaintances. In fact the innocent victim of this dastardly plot was completely deserted, and the little party of her friends was by no means a match for the large and godly hosts who charitably combined to establish her guilt. Her father, with all his manliness of character, and sterling integrity, was not distressed on his daughter's account only. There was another cause of anxiety to him equally deep—we mean the mysterious change that had come over his sons, in consequence of this blasting calamity. He saw clearly that they had come to the dark and stern determination of avenging their sister's disgrace upon its author, and that at whatever risk. This in truth to him was the greater affliction of the two, and he accordingly addressed himself with all his authority and influence over them, to the difficult task of plucking this frightful resolution out of their hearts. In his attempt to execute this task, he found himself baffled and obstructed by other circumstances of a very distracting nature. First, there were the rascally paragraphs alluding to his embarrassments on the one hand, and those which, while pretending to vindicate him and his partner from any risk of bankruptcy, levelled the assassin's blow at the reputation of his poor daughter, on the other. Both told; but the first with an effect which no mere moral courage or consciousness of integrity, however high, could enable him to meet. Creditors came in, alarmed very naturally at the reports against his solvency, and demanded settlement of their accounts from the firm. These, in the first instances, were immediately made out and paid; but this would not do—other claimants came, equally pressing—one after another—and each so anxious in the early panic to secure himself, that ere long the instability which, in the beginning, had no existence, was gradually felt, and the firm of Harman and M'Loughlin felt themselves on the eve of actual bankruptcy.
These matters all pressed heavily and bitterly on both father and sons. But we have yet omitted to mention that which, amidst all the lights in which the daughter contemplated the ruin of her fair fame, fell with most desolating consequences upon her heart—we mean her rejection by Harman, and the deliberate expression of his belief in her guilt. And, indeed, when our readers remember how artfully the web of iniquity was drawn around her, and the circumstances of mystery in which Harman himself had witnessed her connection with Poll Doolin, whose character for conducting intrigues he knew too well, they need not be surprised that he threw her off as a deceitful and treacherous wanton, in whom no man of a generous and honorable nature could or ought to place confidence, and who was unworthy even of an explanation. Mary M'Loughlin could have borne everything but this. Yes; the abandonment of friends—of acquaintances—of a fickle world itself; but here it was where her moral courage foiled her. The very hope to which her heart had clung from its first early and innocent impulses—the man to whom she looked up as the future guide, friend, and partner of her life, and for whose sake and safety she had suffered herself to be brought within the meshes of her enemies and his—this man, her betrothed husband, had openly expressed his conviction of her being unfit to become his wife, upon hearing from his cousin and namesake an account of what that young man had witnessed. Something between a nervous and brain fever had seized her on the very night of this heinous stratagem; but from that she was gradually recovering when at length she heard, by accident, of Harman's having unequivocally and finally withdrawn from the engagement. Under this she sank. It was now in vain to attempt giving her support, or cheering her spirits. Depression, debility, apathy, restlessness, and all the symptoms of a breaking constitution and a broken heart, soon began to set in and mark her for an early, and what was worse, an ignominious grave. It was then that her brothers deemed it full time to act. Their father, on the night before the day on which poor Raymond was rescued from death, observed them secretly preparing firearms,—for they had already, as the reader knows, satisfied themselves that M'Clutchy, junior, would not fight—took an opportunity of securing their weapons in a place where he knew they could not be found. This, however, was of little avail—they told him it must and should be done, and that neither he nor any other individual in existence should debar them from the execution of their just, calm, and reasonable vengeance—for such were their very words. In this situation matters were, when about eleven o'clock the next morning, Father Roche, who, from the beginning, had been there to aid and console, as was his wont, wherever calamity or sorrow called upon him, made his appearance in the family, much to the relief of M'Loughlin's mind, who dreaded the gloomy deed which his sons had proposed to themselves to execute, and who knew besides, that in this good and pious priest he had a powerful and eloquent ally. After the first salutations had passed, M'Loughlin asked for a private interview with him; and when they had remained about a quarter of an hour together, the three sons were sent for, all of whom entered with silent and sullen resolution strongly impressed on their stern, pale, and immovable features. Father Roche himself was startled even into something like terror, when he witnessed this most extraordinary change in the whole bearing and deportment of the young men, whom he had always known so buoyant and open-hearted.
“My dear young friends,” said he, calmly and affectionately, “your father has just disclosed to me a circumstance, to which, did it not proceed from his lips, I could not yield credit. Is it true that you have come to the most unchristian and frightful determination of shedding blood?”
“Call it just and righteous,” said John, calmly.
“Yes,” followed the other two, “it is both.”
“In his cowardly crime he has evaded the responsibility of law,” continued John, “and we care not if his punishment goes beyond law itself. We will answer for it with our lives—but in the mean time, he must die.”
“You see, Father Roche,” observed M'Loughlin, “to what a hardened state the strong temptations of the devil has brought them.”
“It is not that,” said John; “it is affection for our injured sister, whom he has doubly murdered—it is also hatred of himself, and of the oppression we are receiving in so many shapes at his hands. He must die.”
“Yes,” repeated the two brothers, “he must die, it is now too late.”