Perhaps there was not one among his nearest friends who felt more profound regret for having been the occasion of his disgrace, and consequently of the fate to which he had exposed him, than Meehaul Neil.  In the course of that day he sent his father to old Lamh Laudher, to know if young O’Rorke would grant him an interview, the object of which was to dissuade him from the battle.

“Tell him,” said the latter, with a composure still tinged with a sorrowful spirit, “that I will not see him to-day.  To-morrow I may, and if I don’t, tell him, that for his sister’s sake, he has my forgiveness.”

The introduction of the daughter’s name shortened the father’s visit, who left him in silence.

Ellen, however, had struggles to endure which pressed upon her heart with an anguish bitter in proportion to the secrecy rendered necessary by the dread of her relations.  From the moment she heard of Lamh Laudher’s challenge, and saw the funeral appendages with which the Dead Boxer had darkened the preparations for the fight, she felt her heart sink, from a consciousness that she had been indirectly the murderess of her lover.  Her countenance became ghastly pale, and her frame was seized with a tremor which she could hardly conceal.  She would have been glad to have shed tears, but tears were denied her.  Except the Boxer’s wife, there was no one to whom she could disclose her misery; but alas! for once, that amiable creature was incapable of affording her consolation.  She herself, felt distress resulting from both the challenge, and her husband’s jealousy, almost equal to that of Ellen.

“I know not how it is,” said she, “but I cannot account for the interest I feel in that young man.  Yes, surely, it is natural, when we consider that I owe my life to him.  Still, independently of that, I never heard his voice, that it did not fall upon my heart like the voice of a friend.  We must, if possible, change his mind,”, she added, wiping away her tears; “for I know that if he fights that terrible man, he will be killed.”

At Ellen’s request, she consented to see Lamh Laudher, with a view of entreating him, in her name, to decline the fight.  Nor were her own solicitations less urgent.  With tears and grief which could not be affected, she besought him not to rush upon certain death—­said that Ellen could not survive it—­pleaded the claims of his aged parents, and left no argument untouched that could apply to his situation and conduct.  Lamh Laudher, however, was inexorable, and she relinquished an attempt that she felt to be ineffectual.  The direction of her husband’s attention so unexpectedly to widow Rorke’s I cabin, at that moment, and his discovery of her interview with Lamh Laudher, determined her, previously acquainted as she had been with his jealousy, to keep out of his reach, until some satisfactory explanation could be given.  Ellen, however, could not rest; her grief had so completely overborne all