These observations of this estimable woman had the desired effect, which was, as she afterwards said, to divert her husband’s mind as much as possible from the contemplation of Connor’s fate, and to fix it upon the consideration of those duties in which she knew his conscience, now touched by calamity, would tell him he had been deficient.

Fardorougha was silent for some time after her last observations—­but at length he observed: 

“Would it be possible, Honor, that all this was brought upon us in ordher to punish me for—­for—­”

“To punish you, Fardorougha?  Fareer gaih avourneen, arn’t we all punished? look at my worn face, and think of what ten days’ sorrow can do in a mother’s heart—­think, too, of the boy.  Oh no, no—­do you think I’ve have nothin’ to be punished for?  But we have all one comfort, Fardorougha, and that is, that God’s ever and always willin’ to re-save us, when we turn to Him wid a true heart?  Nobody, avillish, can forget and forgive as He does.”

“Honor, why didn’t you oftener spake to me this a-way than you did?”

“I often did, dear, an’ you may remember it; but you were then strong; you had your wealth; everything flowed wid you, an’ the same wealth—­the world’s temptation—­was strong in your heart; but God has taken it from you I hope as a blessing—­for, indeed, Fardorougha, I’m afeard if you had it now, that neither he nor—­but I won’t say it, dear, for God sees I don’t wish to say one word that ’ud distress you now, avourneen.  Any how, Fardorougha, never despair in God’s goodness—­never do it; who can tell what may happen?”

Her husband’s grief was thus checked, and a train of serious reflection laid, which, like some of those self-evident convictions that fastened on the awakened conscience, the old man could not shake off.

Honor, in her further conversation with him, touching the coming interview with the unhappy culprit, desired him, above all things, to set “their noble boy” an example of firmness, and by no means to hold out to him any expectation of life.

“It would be worse than murdher,” she exclaimed, “to do so.  No—­prepare him by your advice, Fardorougha, ay, and by your example, to be firm—­and tell him that his mother expects he will die like an innocent man—­noble and brave—­and not like a guilty coward, afeard to look up and meet his God.”

Infidels and hypocrites, so long as their career in vice is unchecked by calamity, will no doubt sneer when we assure them, that Fardorougha, after leaving his wife that morning once more to visit his son, felt a sense of relief, or, perhaps we should say, a breaking of faint light upon his mind, which, slight as it was, afforded him more comfort and support than he ever hoped to experience.  Indeed, it was almost impossible for any heart to exist within the influence of that piety which animated his admirable wife, and not catch the holy fire which there burned with such purity and brightness.