“I know it is; and it was that very thought that made me vote.  I felt that it would look both mane and cowardly not to vote, and accordingly I did vote.”

“Ay, and you did right,” replied his spirited sister, “and I don’t care who opposes you, I’ll support you for it, through thick and thin.”

“And I suppose you may say through right and wrong, too?”

“Ay, would I,” she replied; “eh?—­what am I sayin?—­throth, I’m a little madcap, I think.  No, I won’t support you through right and wrong—­it’s only when you’re right you may depend on me.”

They had now been more than an hour strolling about the fields, when Bryan, who did not feel himself quite so strong as he imagined he was, proposed to return to his father’s, where, by the way, he had been conveyed from the chapel on the Sunday when he had been so severely maltreated.

They accordingly did so, for he felt himself weak, and unable to prolong his walk to any greater distance.

CHAPTER XXI.—­Thomas M’Mahon is forced to determine on Emigration.

Gerald Cavanaugh felt himself secretly relieved by the discharge of his message to M’Mahon.

“It is good,” thought he, “to have that affair settled, an’ all expectation of her marriage with him knocked up.  I’ll be bound a little time will cool the foolish girl, and put Edward Burke in the way of succeeding.  As for Hycy, I see clearly that whoever is to succeed, he’s not the man—­an’ the more the pity, for the sorra one of them all so much the gentleman, nor will live in sich style.”

The gloom which lay upon the heart of Kathleen Cavanagh was neither moody nor captious, but on the contrary remarkable for a spirit of extreme gentleness and placidity.  From the moment she had come to the resolution of discarding M’Mahon, she was observed to become more silent than she had ever been, but at the same time her deportment was characterized by a tenderness towards the other members of the family that was sorrowful and affecting to the last degree.  Her sister Hanna’s sympathy was deep and full of sorrow.  None of them, however, knew her force of character, nor the inroads which, under guise of this placid calm, strong grief was secretly making on her health and spirits.  The paleness, for instance, which settled on her cheeks, when the news of her lover’s apostacy, as it was called, and as she considered it, reached her, never for one moment left it afterwards, and she resembled some exquisitely chiselled statue moving by machinery, more than anything else to which we can compare her.

She was sitting with Hanna when her father returned, after having delivered her message to M’Mahon.  The old man seemed, if one could judge by his features, to feel rather satisfied, as in fact was the case, and after having put up his good hat, and laid aside his best coat, he said, “I have delivered your message, Kathleen, an’ dear knows I’m glad there’s an end to that business—­it never had my warm heart.”