’Pray, read it—­you will understand it—­’tis easily read.  What a pretty hand it was!’

So Devereux took the little paper, and read just the words which follow:—­

’My beloved father will, I hope, if he thinks it right, tell Captain Richard Devereux that I was not so unkind and thankless as I may have seemed, but very grateful for his preference, of which I know, in many ways, how unworthy I was.  But I do not think we could have been happy; and being all over, it is a great comfort to friends who are separated here, that there is a place where all may meet again, if God will; and as I did not see or speak with him since my dear father brought his message, I wished that so much should be said, and also to say a kind good-bye, and give him all good wishes.

         &nb
sp;                                                  ‘LILIAS.’ 
    ‘Friday evening.’

Captain Richard Devereux read this simple little record through, and then he said:—­

‘Oh, Sir, may I have it—­isn’t it mine?’

We who have heard those wondrous aerial echoes of Killarney, when the breath has left the bugle and its cadences are silent, take up the broken links of the lost melody with an answer far away, sad and celestial, real, yet unreal, the fleeting yet lingering spirit of music, that is past and over, have something in memory by which we can illustrate the effect of these true voices of the thoughts and affections that have perished, returning for a few charmed moments regretfully and sweetly from the sea of eternal silence.

And so that sad and clear farewell, never repeated, was long after, in many a lonely night, answered by the voice of Devereux.

’Did she—­did she know how I loved her?  Oh, never, never!  I’ll never love any but you.  Darling, darling—­you can’t die.  Oh, no, no, no!  Your place knows you still; your place is here—­here—­here.’

And he smote his breast over that heart which, such as it was, cherished a pure affection for her.

CHAPTER XCI.

CONCERNING CERTAIN DOCUMENTS WHICH REACHED MR. MERVYN, AND THE WITCHES’ REVELS AT THE MILLS.

I would be ashamed to say how, soon after Dangerfield had spoken to Mr. Mervyn in the church-yard on the Sunday afternoon, when he surprised him among the tombstones, the large-eyed young gentleman, with the long black hair, was at his desk, and acting upon his suggestion.  But the Hillsborough was to sail next day; and Mr. Mervyn’s letter, containing certain queries, and an order for twenty guineas on a London house, glided in that packet with a favouring breeze from the Bay of Dublin, on its way to the London firm of Elrington Brothers.

On the morning of the day whose events I have been describing in the last half-dozen chapters, Mr. Mervyn received his answer, which was to the following effect:—­