an old man, and one who when he went would leave no home behind him.  And then it was felt that the close vicinity of the spot on which her lover had perished would produce a continued melancholy that might crush her spirits utterly.  Captain O’Hara therefore was desired to come and fetch his child,—­and he did so, with many protestations of virtue for the future.  If actual pecuniary comfort can conduce to virtue in such a man, a chance was given him.  The Earl of Scroope was only too liberal in the settlement he made.  But the settlement was on the daughter and not on the father; and it is possible therefore that some gentle restraint may have served to keep him out of the deep abysses of wickedness.

The effects of the tragedy on the coast of Clare spread beyond Ireland, and drove another woman to the verge of insanity.  When the Countess of Scroope heard the story, she shut herself up at Scroope and would see no one but her own servants.  When the succeeding Earl came to the house which was now his own, she refused to admit him into her presence, and declined even a renewed visit from Miss Mellerby who at that time had returned to her father’s roof.  At last the clergyman of Scroope prevailed, and to him she unburdened her soul,—­acknowledging, with an energy that went perhaps beyond the truth, the sin of her own conduct in producing the catastrophe which had occurred.  “I knew that he had wronged her, and yet I bade him not to make her his wife.”  That was the gist of her confession and she declared that the young man’s blood would be on her hands till she died.  A small cottage was prepared for her on the estate, and there she lived in absolute seclusion till death relieved her from her sorrows.

And she lived not only in seclusion, but in solitude almost to her death.  It was not till four years after the occurrences which have been here related that John fourteenth Earl of Scroope brought a bride home to Scroope Manor.  The reader need hardly be told that that bride was Sophie Mellerby.  When the young Countess came to live at the Manor the old Countess admitted her visits and at last found some consolation in her friend’s company.  But it lasted not long, and then she was taken away and buried beside her lord in the chancel of the parish church.

When it was at last decided that the law should not interfere at all as to the personal custody of the poor maniac who had sacrificed everything to avenge her daughter, the Earl of Scroope selected for her comfort the asylum in which she still continues to justify from morning to night, and, alas, often all the night long, the terrible deed of which she is ever thinking.  “An eye for an eye,” she says to the woman who watches her.

“Oh, yes, ma’am; certainly.”

“An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth!  Is it not so?  An eye for an eye!”

***End of the project gutenberg EBOOK an eye for an eye***