garden attached to Corbo Castle.  Having ascertained that it was unlocked, he entered with no difficulty, and traversed the garden without being able to perceive her whose love was now, it might be said, all that life had left him.  After having satisfied himself that she was not in the garden, he withdrew to an arbor or summer-house of evergreens, where he resolved to await until she should come.  He did not wait long.  The latch of the entrance gate from the front made a noise; ah, how his heart beat! what a commotion agitated his whole frame!  In a few moments she was with him.

“Reilly,” said Cooleen Bawn, “I have dreadful news to communicate.”

“I know all,” said he; “I am to be arrested to-morrow night.”

“To-night, dearest Reilly, to-night.  Papa told me this evening, in one of his moods of anger, that before to-morrow morning you would be in Sligo jail.”

“Well, dearest Helen,” he replied, “that is certainly making quick work of it.  But, even so, I am prepared this moment to escape.  I have settled my affairs, left the management of them to my uncle, and this interview with you, my beloved girl, must be our last.”

As he uttered these melancholy words the tears came to his eyes.

“The last!” she exclaimed.  “Oh, no; it must not be the last.  You shall not go alone, dearest William.  My mind is made up.  Be it for life or for death, I shall accompany you.”

“Dearest life,” he replied, “think of the consequences.”

“I think of nothing,” said Cooleen Bawn, “but my love for you.  If you were not surrounded by danger as you are, if the whoop of vengeance were not on your trail, if death and a gibbet were not in the background, I could part with you; but now that danger, vengeance, and death, are hovering about you, I shall and must partake of them with you.  And listen, Reilly; after all it is the best plan.  Papa, if I accompany you—­supposing that we are taken—­will relent for my sake.  I know his love for me.  His affection for me will overcome all his prejudices against you.  Then let us fly.  To-night you will be taken.  Your rival will triumph over both of us; and I—­I, oh!  I shall not survive it.  Save me, then, Reilly, and let me fly with you.”

“God knows,” replied Reilly, with deep emotion, “if I suffered myself to be guided by the impulse of my heart, I would yield to wishes at once so noble and disinterested.  I cannot, however, suffer my affection, absorbing and inexpressible as it is, to precipitate your ruin.  I speak not of myself, nor of what I may suffer.  When we reflect, however, my beloved girl, upon the state of the country, and of the law, as it operates against the liberty and property of Catholics, we must both admit the present impossibility of an elopement without involving you in disgrace.  You know that until some relaxation of the laws affecting marriage between Catholics and Protestants takes place, an union between us is impossible; and this fact it is which would attach disgrace to you, and a want of honor, principle, and gratitude to me.  We should necessarily lead the lives of the guilty, and seek the wildest fastnesses of the mountain solitudes and the oozy caverns of the bleak and solitary hills.”