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"You're going on to Ardkill, I suppose, my Lord," he said. "Yes; certainly; but I intended to take the Liscannor road on purpose to see you. I shall leave the car at Liscannor and walk up. You could not return, I suppose?" "Well, yes, I might." "If you could, Father Marty " "Oh, certainly." The priest now saw that there was something more in the man's manner than lordly pride.
But, and this information was not given without much delay and great beating about the bush, there was a rumour about Liscannor that Captain O'Hara had "turned up." Fred was so startled at this that he could not refrain from showing his anxiety by the questions which he asked. Barney did not seem to think that the Captain had been at Ardkill or anywhere in the neighbourhood.
The truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't be an old maid. I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope, Dorsetshire, that will be enough; to F. Neville, Esq. Give my love to your mother.
But, though his aunt was almost nothing to him, was not in very truth his aunt, but only the widow of his uncle, there had been a solemnity about the engagement as he had now made it with her, which he felt to be definitely binding. He must go to Ardkill prepared to tell them absolutely the truth.
The mother herself as she was now present to him, seemed to be a woman very different from the quiet, handsome, high-spirited, but low-voiced widow whom he had known, or thought that he had known, at Ardkill. Of her as she had there appeared to him he had not been ashamed to think as one who might at some future time be personally related to himself.
"You'll be going up to see our friends at Ardkill to-morrow," said the priest. "Likely enough, Father Marty." "In course you will. Sorrow a doubt of that." Then the priest paused. "And why shouldn't I?" asked Neville. "I'm not saying that you shouldn't, Mr. Neville. It wouldn't be civil nor yet nathural after knowing them as you have done.
It is true, indeed, that men are merciless as wolves to women, that they become so, taught by circumstances and trained by years; but the young man who begins by meaning to be a wolf must be bad indeed. Fred Neville had no such meaning. On his behalf it must be acknowledged that he had no meaning whatever when he came again and again to Ardkill.
On the following morning the priest was very jolly at breakfast, and in speaking of the ladies at Ardkill made no allusion whatever to the conversation of the previous evening. "Ah no," he said, when Neville proposed that they should walk up together to the cottage before he went down to his boat. "What's the good of an ould man like me going bothering?
Poor Simpkinson had expected long whispered confidential conversations respecting the ladies of Ardkill; but the Earl had barely thanked him for his journey; and the whispered confidence, which would have been so delightful, was at once impossible. "By Heaven, there's nothing like rank to spoil a fellow. He was a good fellow once."
He was away with his horse, and would not be back till dinner time. Then Neville, having seen his own nag taken from the gig, started on his walk up to Ardkill. How ugly the country was to his eyes as he now saw it.
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