She then hastily sent her brother into Ballynafail for such comforts as she deemed necessary for both parties; and in the mean time, putting a bonnet over her clean nightcap, she proceeded to the shed in which Sarah M’Gowan lay.

On looking at it ere she entered, she could not help shuddering.  It was such a place as the poorest pauper in the poorest cabin would not willingly place an animal in for shelter.  It simply consisted of a few sticks laid up against the side of a ditch; over these sticks were thrown a few scraws—­that is, the sward of the earth cut thin; in the inside was the remnant of some loose straw, the greater part having been taken away either for bedding or firing.

When Mave entered, she started at the singular appearance of Sarah.  From the first moment her person had been known to her until the present, she had never seen her look half so beautiful.  She literally lay stretched upon a little straw, with no other pillow than a sod of earth under that rich and glowing cheek, while her raven hair had fallen down, and added to the milk-white purity of her shining neck and bosom.

“Father of Mercy!” exclaimed Mave, mentally, “how will she live—­how can she live here?  An’ what will become of her?  Is she to die in this miserable way in a Christian land?”

Sarah lay groaning with pain, and starting from time to time with the pangs of its feverish inflictions.  Mave spoke not when she entered the shed, being ignorant whether Sarah was asleep or awake; but a very few moments soon satisfied her that the unhappy and deserted girl was under the influence of delirium.

“I won’t break my promise, father, but I’ll break my heart; an’ I can’t even give her warnin’.  Ah! but it’s threacherous—­an’ I hate that.  No, no—­I’ll have no hand in it—­manage it your own way—­it’s threacherous.  She has crossed my happiness,you say—­ay, an’ there you’re right—­so she has—­only for her I might—­amn’t I as handsome, you say, an’ as well shaped—­haven’t I as white a skin?—­as beautiful hair, an’ as good eyes?—­people say betther—­an’ if I have, wouldn’t he come to love me in time?—­only for her—­or if there wasn’t that bar put between us.  You’re right, you’re right.  She’s the cause of all my sufferin’ an’ sorrow.  She is—­I agree—­I agree—­down with her—­out o’ my way with her—­I hate the thoughts of her—­an’ I’ll join it—­for mark me, father, wicked I may be, but more miserable I can’t—­so I’ll join you in it.  What need I care now?”

Mave felt her heart sink, and her whole being disturbed with a heavy sense of terror, as Sarah uttered the incoherent rhapsody which we have just repeated.  The vague, but strongly expressed warnings which she had previously heard from Nelly, and the earnest admonitions which that person had given her to beware of evil designs on the part of Donnel Dhu and his daughter, now rushed upon her mind; and she stood looking upon the desolate girl with feelings that it is difficult to describe.  She also remembered that Sarah herself had told her in their very last interview, that she had other thoughts, and worse thoughts than the fair battle of rivalry between them would justify; and it was only now, too, that the unconscious allusion to the Prophet struck her with full force.