Dalton pressed her hand, and looking tenderly upon her face, replied: 

“Dear Sarah, forgive me; your dhrame is both thrue and false.  It is true that I like you—­that I pity you; but you forbid me to say that—­well it is true, I say, that I like you; but I can’t say more.  The only girl I love in the sense you mane, is Mave Sullivan.  I could not tell you an untruth, Sarah; nor don’t desave yourself.  I like you, but I love her.”

She started up, and in an instant dashed the tears from her cheeks; after which she said: 

“I am glad to know it; you have said the truth—­the bitther truth; ay, bitther it will prove, Condy Dalton, to more than me.  My happiness in this world is now over forever.  I never was happy; an’ its clear that the doom is against me; I never will be happy.  I am now free to act as I like.  No matther what I do, it can’t make me feel more than I feel now.  I might take a life; ay, twenty, an’ I couldn’t feel more miserable than I am.  Then, what is there to prevent me from workin’ out my own will, an’ doin’ what my father wishes?  I may make myself worse an’ guiltier; but unhappier I cannot be.  That poor, weak hope was all I had in this world; but that is gone; and I have no other hope now.”

“Compose yourself, dear Sarah; calm yourself,” said Dalton.

“Don’t call me dear Sarah,” she replied; “you were wrong ever to do so.  Oh, why was I born! an’ what has this world an’ this life been to me but hardship an’ sorrow?  But still,” she added, drawing herself up, “I will let you all see what pride can do.  I now know my fate, an’ what I must suffer:  an’ if one tear would gain your love, I wouldn’t shed it—­never, never.”

“Sarah,” said Mary, in a soothing voice, “I hope you won’t blame poor Con.  You don’t know maybe that himself an’ Mave Sullivan has loved one another ever since they were—­”

“No more about Mave Sullivan,” she replied, almost fiercely; “lave her to me.  As for me, I’ll not brake my word, either for good or evil; I was never the one to do an ungenerous—­an ungenerous—­no—­” She paused, however, as if struck by some latent conviction, and, in a panting voice, she added, “I must lave you for a while, but I will be back in an hour or two; oh, yes I will; an’ in the mane time, Mary, anything that is to be done, you can do it for me till I come agin.  Mave Sullivan!  Mave Sullivan! lave Mave Sullivan to me!”

She then threw an humble garment about her, and in a few minutes was on her way to have an interview with her father.  On reaching home, she found that he had arrived only a few minutes before her; and to her surprise he expressed something like; good humor, or, perhaps, gratification at her presence there.  On looking into her face more closely, however, he had little trouble in perceiving that something extraordinary had disturbed her.  He then glanced at Nelly, who, as usual, sat gloomily by the fire, knitting her brows and groaning with suppressed ill-temper as she had been in the habit of doing, ever since she suspected that Donnel had made a certain disclosure, connecting with her, to Sarah.