“She told my brother Woodward, face to face, that such was her fixed determination.”

“Good again; and what did he say?”

“Nothing particular, but that he was glad it was to stay in the family, and not go to strangers, like our uncle’s—­alluding, of course, to his will in favor of dear Alice Goodwin.”

“Ay, but how did he look?” asked Barney.

“I didn’t observe, I was rather in pain at the time; but, from a passing glimpse I got, I thought his countenance darkened a little; but I may be mistaken.”

“Well, I hope so,” said Barney.  “I hope so—­but—­well, I am glad to find you are betther, Masther Charles, and to hear the good piece of fortune you have mentioned.  I trust in God your mother will keep her word—­that’s all.”

“As for myself,” said Charles, “I am indifferent about the property; all that presses upon my heart is my anxiety for Miss Goodwin’s recovery.”

“Don’t be alarmed on that account,” said Casey! “they say the waters of Ballyspellan would bring the dead to life.  Now, good-by, Masther Charles; don’t be cast down—­keep up your spirits, for something tells me that’s there’s luck before you, and good luck, too.”

After leaving him Barney began to ruminate.  He had remarked an extraordinary change in the countenance and deportment of Harry Woodward during the evening before and the earlier part of that day.  The plausible serenity of his manner was replaced by unusual gloom, and that abstraction which is produced by deep and absorbing thought.  He seemed so completely wrapped up in constant meditation upon some particular subject, that he absolutely forgot to guard himself against observation or remark, by his usual artifice of manner.  He walked alone in the garden, a thing he was not accustomed to do; and during these walks he would stop and pause, then go on slowly and musingly, and stop and pause again.  Barney, as we have said before, was a keen observer, and having watched him from a remote corner of the garden in which he was temporarily engaged among some flowers, he came at once to the conclusion that Woodward’s mind was burdened with something which heavily depressed his spirits, and occupied his whole attention.

“Ah,” exclaimed Barney, “the villain is brewing mischief for some one, but I will watch his motions if I should pass sleepless nights for it.  He requires a sharp eye after him, and it will go hard with me or I shall know what his midnight wanderings mean; but in the meantime I must keep calm and quiet, and not seem to watch him.”

Whilst Barney, who was unseen by Woodward, having been separated from him by a fruit hedge over which he occasionally peeped, indulged in this soliloquy, the latter, in the same deep and moody meditation, extended his walk, his brows contracted, and dark as midnight.