“I’ll pray to God, Denis.  Isn’t that the way to act under afflictions?”

“Decidedly.  There is no other legitimate mode of quelling a heart-ache.  And, Susan, when you go to supplication you are at liberty to mention my name—­no, not yet; but if I were once consecrated you might.  However, it is better to sink this; say nothing about me when you pray, for, to tell you I truth, I believe you have as much influence above—­super astra—­as I have.  There is one argument which I am anxious to press upon you.  It is a very simple but a very respectable one after all.  I am not all Ireland.  You will find excellent good husbands even in this parish.  There is, as the old proverb says, as good fish in the say as ever were caught.  Do you catch one of them.  For me, Susan, the vineyard claims me; I must, as I said, cultivate the grape.  We must, consequently—­hem!—­we must—­hem!—­hem!—­consequently strive to forget—­hem!—­I say, to forget each other.  It is a trial—­I know—­a desperte visitation, poor fawn, upon your feelings; but, as I said, destiny will be triumphant.  What is decreed, is decreed—­I must go to Maynooth.”

Susan rose, and her eyes flashed with an indignant sense of the cold-blooded manner in which he advised her to select another husband.  She was an illiterate girl, but the purity of her feeling supplied the delicacy which reading and a knowledge of more refined society would have given her.

“Is it from your lips, Denis,” she said, “that I hear sich a mane and low-minded an advice?  Or do you think that with my weak, and I now see, foolish heart, settled upon you, I could turn round and fix my love upon the first that might ax me?  Denis, you promised before God to be mine, and mine only; you often said and swore that you loved me above any human being; but I now see that you only intended to lead me into sin and disgrace, for indeed, and before God I don’t think—­I don’t—­I don’t—­believe that you ever loved me.”

A burst of grief, mingled with indignation and affliction, followed the words she had uttered.  Denis felt himself called on for a vindication, and he was resolved to give it.

“Susan,” he returned, “your imagination is erroneous.  By all the classical authors that ever were written, you are antipodialry opposed to facts.  What harm is there, seeing that you and I can never be joined in wedlock—­what harm is there, I say, in recommending you another husb—­”

Susan would hear no more.  She gathered up her stocking and ball of thread, placed them in her apron, went into her father’s house, shut and bolted the door, and gave way to violent grief.  All this occurred in a moment, and Denis found himself excluded.

He did not wish, however, to part from her in anger; so, after having attempted to look through the, keyhole of the door, and applied his eye in vain to the window, he at length spoke.

“Is there any body within but yourself, Susy?”