Part 45 (2/2)

At last he turned. ”G.o.d forgive us all,” he said.

She broke into wild weeping. And what her lips, babbling incoherent thanksgiving, did not tell him, the clinging of her arms, as she hung on him, conveyed.

CHAPTER XXV

PEACE

Uncle Ulick, with the mud of the road still undried on his boots, and the curls still stiff in the wig which the town barber at Mallow had dressed for him, rubbed his chin with his hand and, covertly looking round the room, owned himself puzzled. He had returned a week later to the day than he had arranged to return. But had his absence run into months instead of weeks the lapse of time had not sufficed to explain the change which he felt, but could not define, in his surroundings.

Certainly old Darby looked a thought more trim, and the room a trifle better ordered than he had left them. But he was sensible, though vaguely, that the change did not stop there--perhaps did not begin there. Full of news of the outer world as he was, he caught himself pausing in mid-career to question himself. And more than once his furtive eyes scanned his companions' faces for the answer his mind refused to give.

An insolent Englishman had come, and given reins to the _'ubris_ that was in him, and, after running Luke Asgill through the body, had paid the penalty--in fight so fair that the very troopers who had witnessed it could make no complaint nor raise trouble. So much Uncle Ulick had learned. But he had not known Payton, and, exciting as the episode sounded, it did not explain the difference in the atmosphere of the house. Where he had left enmity and suspicion, lowering brows and a silent table, he found smiles, and easiness, and a cheerful sense of well-being.

Again he looked about him. ”And where will James be?” he asked, for the first time missing his nephew.

”He has left us,” Flavia said slowly, with her eyes on Colonel Sullivan.

”It's away to Galway City he is,” Morty O'Beirne explained with a chuckle.

”The saints be between us and harm!” Uncle Ulick exclaimed in astonishment. ”And why's he there?”

”The story is long,” said Colonel Sullivan.

”But I can tell it in a few words,” Flavia continued with dignity. ”And the sooner it is told the better. He has not behaved well, Uncle Ulick.

And at his request and with--the legal owner's consent--it's I have agreed to pay him one-half of the value of the property.”

”The devil you have!” Uncle Ulick exclaimed, in greater astonishment.

And, pus.h.i.+ng back his seat and rubbing his huge thigh with his hand, he looked from one to another. ”By the powers! if I may take the liberty of saying so, young lady, you've done a vast deal in a very little time-faith, in no time at all, at all!” he added.

”It was done at his request,” Flavia answered gravely.

Uncle Ulick continued to rub his thigh and to stare. These things were very surprising. ”And they're telling me,” he said, ”that Luke Asgill's in bed upstairs?”

”He is.”

”And recovering?”

”He is, glory be to G.o.d!”

”Nor that same's not the best news of him,” Morty said with a grin.

”Nor the last.”

”True for you!” Phelim cried. ”If it was the last word you spoke!”

”What are you meaning?” Uncle Ulick asked.

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