“Come up, sir,” replied the man, “and enter the drawing-room immediately after me, or I shall be ordered to deny her.”
The gentleman followed him; but why did his cheek become pale, and why did his heart palpitate as if it would burst and bound out of his bosom? We shall see. On entering the drawing-room he bowed, and was about to apologize for his intrusion, when the Cooleen Bawn, recognizing him as a stranger, approached him and said:
“Oh! can you tell me where is William Reilly? They have taken me from him, and I cannot find him. Oh, can you tell me any thing about William Reilly?”
The stranger staggered at this miserable sight, but probably more at the contemplation of that love which not even insanity could subdue. He felt himself obliged to lean for support upon the back of a chair, during which brief space he fixed his eyes upon her with a look of the most inexpressible tenderness and sorrow.
“Oh!” she repeated, “can you tell me where is William Reilly?”
“Alas! Helen,” said he, “I am William Reilly.”
“You!” she exclaimed. “Oh, no, the wide, wide Atlantic is between him and me.”
“It was between us, Helen, but it is not now; I am here in life before you—your own William Reilly, that William Reilly whom you loved so well, but so fatally. I am he: do you not know me?”
“You are not William Reilly,” she replied; “if you were, you would have a token.”
“Do you forget that?” he replied, placing in her hand the emerald ring she had given him at the trial. She started on looking at it, and a feeble flash was observed to proceed from her eyes.