“This is all contemptible absurdity, my dear mother.  I don’t care if I saw it a thousand times.  How can it interfere with my fate?”

“It does not interfere,” she replied, “it only intimates it, and whatever the nature of the individual’s death among our family may be, it shadows it out.  What signs did it make to you?”

“It brandished what is called in this country a middogue, or Irish dagger, at my heart.”

His mother got pale again.

“Harry,” said she, “I would recommend you to leave the kingdom.  Avoid the third warning!”

“Mother,” he replied, “this certainly is sad nonsense.  I have no notion of leaving the kingdom in consequence of such superstitious stuff as this; all these things are soap bubbles; put your finger on them and they dissolve into nothing.  How is Charles? for I have not yet seen him.”

“Improving very much, although not able yet to leave his room.”

Woodward walked about and seemed absorbed in thought.

“It is a painful thing, mother,” said he, “that Charles is so long recovering.  Do you know that I am half inclined to think he will never recover?  His wound was a dreadful one, and its consequences on his constitution will, I fear, be fatal.”

“I hope not, Harry,” she replied, “for ever since his illness I have found that my heart gathers about him with an affection that I have never felt for him before.”

“Your resolution, then, is fixed, I suppose, to leave him your property?”

“It is fixed; there is, or can be, no doubt about it.  Once I come to a determination I am immovable.  We shall be able to wheedle Lord Cockletown and his niece.”

Harry paused a moment, then passed out of the room, and retired to his own apartment.

Here he remained for hours.  At the close of the evening he appeared in the withdrawing-room, but still in a silent and gloomy state.

The perfect cure of Miss Goodwin had spread like wildfire, and reached the whole country.

Greatrake’s reputation was then at its highest, and the number of his cures was the theme of all conversation, Barney Casey had well marked Woodward since his return from Ballyspellan, and having heard, in connection with others, that Miss Goodwin had been cured by Greatrakes, he resolved to keep his eye upon him, and, indeed, as the event will prove, it was well he did so.

That night, about the hour of twelve o’clock, Barney, who had suspected that he (Woodward) had either murdered Grace Davoren in order to conceal his own guilt, or kept her in some secret place for the most unjustifiable purposes, remarked that, as was generally usual with him, he did not go to bed at the period peculiar to the habits of the family.

“There is something on my mind this night,” said Barney; “I can’t tell what it is; but I think he is bent on some villainous scheme that ought to be watched, and in the name of God I will watch him.”