could have borne everything but this.  Yes; the abandonment of friends—­of acquaintances—­of a fickle world itself; but here it was where her moral courage foiled her.  The very hope to which her heart had clung from its first early and innocent impulses—­the man to whom she looked up as the future guide, friend, and partner of her life, and for whose sake and safety she had suffered herself to be brought within the meshes of her enemies and his—­this man, her betrothed husband, had openly expressed his conviction of her being unfit to become his wife, upon hearing from his cousin and namesake an account of what that young man had witnessed.  Something between a nervous and brain fever had seized her on the very night of this heinous stratagem; but from that she was gradually recovering when at length she heard, by accident, of Harman’s having unequivocally and finally withdrawn from the engagement.  Under this she sank.  It was now in vain to attempt giving her support, or cheering her spirits.  Depression, debility, apathy, restlessness, and all the symptoms of a breaking constitution and a broken heart, soon began to set in and mark her for an early, and what was worse, an ignominious grave.  It was then that her brothers deemed it full time to act.  Their father, on the night before the day on which poor Raymond was rescued from death, observed them secretly preparing firearms,—­for they had already, as the reader knows, satisfied themselves that M’Clutchy, junior, would not fight—­took an opportunity of securing their weapons in a place where he knew they could not be found.  This, however, was of little avail—­they told him it must and should be done, and that neither he nor any other individual in existence should debar them from the execution of their just, calm, and reasonable vengeance—­for such were their very words.  In this situation matters were, when about eleven o’clock the next morning, Father Roche, who, from the beginning, had been there to aid and console, as was his wont, wherever calamity or sorrow called upon him, made his appearance in the family, much to the relief of M’Loughlin’s mind, who dreaded the gloomy deed which his sons had proposed to themselves to execute, and who knew besides, that in this good and pious priest he had a powerful and eloquent ally.  After the first salutations had passed, M’Loughlin asked for a private interview with him; and when they had remained about a quarter of an hour together, the three sons were sent for, all of whom entered with silent and sullen resolution strongly impressed on their stern, pale, and immovable features.  Father Roche himself was startled even into something like terror, when he witnessed this most extraordinary change in the whole bearing and deportment of the young men, whom he had always known so buoyant and open-hearted.

“My dear young friends,” said he, calmly and affectionately, “your father has just disclosed to me a circumstance, to which, did it not proceed from his lips, I could not yield credit.  Is it true that you have come to the most unchristian and frightful determination of shedding blood?”