“Ah, tut they say,” returned her companion, “that a hasty heart was never a bad one.”

“Many a piece o’ nonsense they say as well as that,” rejoined Nelly; “I know them that ’ud put a knife into your heart hastily enough—­ay, an’ give you a hasty death, into the bargain.  They’ll first break your head—­cut you to the skull, and then, indeed, they’ll give you a plaisther.  That was ever an’ always the carrecther of the same Daltons; an’, if all accounts be thrue, the hand of God is upon them, an’ will be upon them till the bloody deed is brought to light.”

“How is that?” inquired the other, with intense interest, whilst her eyes became riveted upon Nelly’s hard features.

“Why, a murdher that was committed betther than twenty years ago in this neighborhood.”

“A murdher!” exclaimed the stranger.  “Where?—­when?—­how?”

“I can tell you where, an’ I can tell you when,” replied Nelly; “but there I must stop—­for unless I was at the committin’ of it, you might know very well I couldn’t tell you how.”

“Where then?” she asked, and whilst she did so, it was by a considerable effort that she struggled to prevent her agitation from being noticed by the prophet’s wife.

“Why, near the Grey Stone at the crossroads of Mallybenagh—­that’s the where!”

“An’ now for the when?” asked the stranger, who almost panted with anxiety as she spoke.

“Let me see,” replied Nelly, “fourteen and six makes twenty, an’ two before that or nearly—­I mane the year of the rebellion, Why it’s not all out two-and-twenty years, I think.”

“Aisey,” said the other, “I’m but very weak an’ feeble—­will you jist wait till I rest a minute upon this green bank by the road.”

“What ails you?” asked Nelly.  “You look as if you got suddenly ill.”

“I did get a little—­but it’ll soon pass away,” she answered—­“thrue enough,” she added in a low voice, and as if in a soliloquy; “God is a just Judge—­he is—­he is!  Well, but—­oh, I’ll soon get better—­well, but listen, what became of the murdhered man?—­was the body ever got?”

“Nobody knows that—­the body was never got—­that is to say nobody knows where it’s now lyin’, snug enough too.”

“Ha!” thought the stranger, eying her furtively—­“snug enough!—­there’s more knowledge where that came from.  What do you mane by snug enough?” she asked abruptly.

“Mane!” replied the other, who at once perceived the force of the unguarded expression she had used;—­“mane, why what could I mane, but that whoever did the deed, hid the body where very few would be likely to find it.”

Her companion now stood up, and approaching the prophet’s wife, raised her hand, and said in a tone that was both startling and emphatic—­

“I met you this day as you may think, by accident; but take my word for it, and, as sure as we must both account for our acts, it was the hand o’ God that brought us together.  I now look into your face, and I tell you that I see guilt and throuble there—­ay, an’ the dark work of a conscience that’s gnawin’ your heart both night and day.”