Mave turned towards Sarah, and, as she looked upon her, the tears started to her eyes.

“Sarah M’Gowan,” said she, “you are fond of truth, an’ you are right; I can’t find words to thank you for doin’ what you did, God bless and reward you!”

She extended her hand as she spoke, but Sarah put it back.  “No,” said she, indignantly, “never from you; above all that’s livin’ don’t you thank me.  You, you, why you arn’t his wife yet,” she exclaimed, in a suppressed voice of deep agitation, “an maybe you never will.  You don’t know what may happen—­you don’t know—­”

She immediately seemed to recollect something that operated as a motive to restrain any exhibition of strong feeling or passion on her part, for all at once she composed herself, and sitting down, merely said:—­

“Mave Sullivan, I’m glad you love truth, and I believe you do; I can’t, then, resave any thanks from you, nor I won’t; an’ I would tell you why, any place but here.”

“I don’t at all understand you,” replied Mave; “but for your care and attention to him, I’m sure it’s no harm to say, may God reward you!  I will never forget it to you.”

“While I have life,” said Dalton feebly, and fixing his eyes upon Sarah’s face, “I, for one, won’t forget her kindness.”

“Kindness!” she re-echoed—­“ha, ha!—­well, it’s no matter—­it’s no matter!”

“She saved my life, Mave; I was lyin’ here, and hadn’t even a drink of water, and there was no one else in the house; Mary, there, was out, an’ poor Nancy was ravin’ an’ ragin’ with illness and pain; but she, Sarah, was here to settle us, to attend us, to get us a drink whenever we wanted it—­to raise us up, an’ to put it to our lips, an’ to let us down with as little pain as possible.  Oh, how could I forget all this?  Dear, dear Sarah, how could I forget this if I was to live a thousand years?”

Con’s face, while he spoke, became animated with the enthusiasm of the feeling to which he gave utterance, and, as his eyes were fixed on Sarah with a suitable expression, there appeared to be a warmth of emotion in his whole manner which a sanguine person might probably interpret in something beyond gratitude.

Sarah, after he had concluded, looked upon him with a long, earnest, but uncertain gaze; so long, indeed, and so intensely penetrating was it, that the whole energy of her character might, for a time, be read clearly in the singular expression of her eyes.  It was evident that her thoughts were fluttering between pleasure and pain, cheerfulness and gloom; but at length her countenance lost, by degrees its earnest character, the alternate play of light and shadow over it ceased, and the gaze changed, almost imperceptibly, into one of settled abstraction.

“It might be,” she said, as if thinking aloud—­“it might be—­but time will tell; and, in the manetime, everything must be done fairly—­fairly; still, if it shouldn’t come to pass—­if it should not—­it would be betther if I had never been born; but it may be, an’ time will tell.”