“If you ever dare again to utter a word or meditate a thought of evil against that unhappy creature,” he cried, “I will tear you limb from limb between my hands!”

III.—­“Found Drowned"

Hardress had left Eily almost unprovided with funds.  After a few weeks she was obliged to write for pecuniary assistance.  The letter was unheeded.  She borrowed a pony, and went to ask advice from her father’s brother, Father O’Connor, of Castle Island.  The priest received her very coldly, but became deeply moved upon hearing that she was legally married.  She begged him to inform her father that she hoped soon to ask his pardon for all the sorrow she had caused.  He gave her all the money he had, and she returned to the cottage.

Danny Mann delivered Eily’s letter, and sat drinking with his master in Mrs. Cregan’s drawing-room.  Anne Chute entered, and finding the man she loved in an intoxicated condition she withdrew in sorrow and disgust.

He asked the girl’s forgiveness when soberness returned, and she told him that she was greatly distressed because of his changed manner.  For a long time past there had been a distressing series of misconceptions on her part, and of inconsistencies on his.  She could not explain how deeply troubled she felt.

The intoxication of passion overcame Hardress, and he told her that the key to everything was that he loved her.  She forgave him, and he was about to send a reassuring line to his mother, when he found in his hands a portion of Eily’s letter, in which she begged him to let her go back to her father.  He turned white with fear, but Mrs. Cregan entered, and her strong will overbore his scruples.  He declared himself ready to marry his beautiful cousin.  Then he sought Danny Mann, and reminded him of his suggestion about hiring a passage for Eily in a North American vessel.

“You bade me draw my glove from off my hand, and give it for a warrant,” he said, plucking off the glove slowly finger by finger.  “My mind is altered.  I married too young; I didn’t know my own mind.  I am burning with this thralldom.  Here is my glove.”

Danny took it, whilst they exchanged a look of cold and fatal intelligence.  Hardress gave him a purse, and repeated that Eily must not stay in Ireland, that three thousand miles of roaring ocean were a security for silence.  Not a hair of her head must be hurt, but he would never see her more.  Then he wrote on the back of Eily’s letter instructions for her to put herself under the bearer’s care, and he would restore her to her father.  She determined to obey at once, and without a murmur, and at nightfall left the cottage in Danny’s company.  Two hours afterwards Hardress himself arrived in a fit of compunction.  On learning that they had departed, he swore to himself that if this his servant exceeded his views, he would tear his flesh from his bones, and gibbet him as a miscreant and a ruffian.

The night grew wild and stormy; a thunderstorm broke over the hill.  Hardress slumbered in his chair, crying out, “My glove, my glove!  You used it against my meaning!  I meant but banishment.  We shall be hanged for this!”