The priest left them soon,—­but not till it had been arranged that Neville should go back to Ennis to prepare for his reception of the Captain, and return to the cottage on the day after that interview was over.  He assumed on a sudden the practical views of a man of business.  He would take care to have an Ennis attorney with him when speaking to the Captain, and would be quite prepared to go to the extent of two hundred a year for the Captain’s life, if the Captain could be safely purchased for that money.  “A quarter of it would do,” said Mrs. O’Hara.  The priest thought L2 a week would be ample.  “I’ll be as good as my word,” said Fred. Kate sat looking into his face thinking that he was still a god.

“And you will certainly be here by noon on Sunday?” said Kate, clinging to him when he rose to go.

“Most certainly.”

“Dear, dear Fred.”  And so he walked down the hill to the priest’s house almost triumphantly.  He thought himself fortunate in not finding the priest who had ridden off from Ardkill to some distant part of the parish;—­and then drove himself back to Ennis.

CHAPTER V.

Fred Neville is again called home to Scroope.

Neville was intent upon business, and had not been back in Ennis from the cottage half an hour before he obtained an introduction to an attorney.  He procured it through the sergeant-major of the troop.  The sergeant-major was intimate with the innkeeper, and the innkeeper was able to say that Mr. Thaddeus Crowe was an honest, intelligent, and peculiarly successful lawyer.  Before he sat down to dinner Fred Neville was closeted at the barracks with Mr. Crowe.

He began by explaining to Mr. Crowe who he was.  This he did in order that the attorney might know that he had the means of carrying out his purpose.  Mr. Crowe bowed, and assured his client that on that score he had no doubts whatever.  Nevertheless Mr. Crowe’s first resolve, when he heard of the earldom and of the golden prospects, was to be very careful not to pay any money out of his own pocket on behalf of the young officer, till he made himself quite sure that it would be returned to him with interest.  As the interview progressed, however, Mr. Crowe began to see his way, and to understand that the golden prospects were not pleaded because the owner of them was himself short of cash.  Mr. Crowe soon understood the whole story.  He had heard of Captain O’Hara, and believed the man to be as thorough a blackguard as ever lived.  When Neville told the attorney of the two ladies, and of the anxiety which he felt to screen them from the terrible annoyance of the Captain’s visits, Mr. Crowe smiled, but made no remark.  “It will be enough for you to know that I am in earnest about it,” said the future Earl, resenting even the smile.  Mr. Crowe bowed, and asked his client to finish the story.  “The man is to be with me to-morrow, here, at twelve, and I wish you to be present.  Mr. Crowe, my intention is to give him two hundred pounds a year as long as he lives.”