Captain Con retained the hand of Father Boyle and squeezed it during his eulogies, at the same time dispensing nods and winks and sunny sparkles upon Kathleen.  Mr. Colesworth went upstairs to his room not unflattered.  The flattery enveloped him in the pleasant sense of a somehow now established companionship for the day with a pleasant person from whom he did not wish to separate.

‘You made the gentleman’s acquaintance, my dear . . . ?’ said Con.

Kathleen answered:  ’He made friends with our Patrick on the Continent, I think it was in Germany, and came to us to study the old country, bearing a letter from Patrick.  He means to be one of their writers on the newspapers.  He studies everything; he has written books.  He called on us coming and called on us going and we came over together,’ said Miss Kathleen.  ‘But tell me:  our Philip?’

‘Books!’ Con exclaimed.  ’It’s hard to discover a man in these days who hasn’t written books.  Oh!  Philip!  Ease your heart about Philip.  They’re nursing him, round.  He was invalided at the right moment for him, no fear.  I gave him his chance of the last vacant seat up to the last hour, and now the die is cast and this time I ’m off to it.  Poor Philip—­yes, yes! we ’re sorry to see him flat all his length, we love him; he’s a gallant soldier; alive to his duty; and that bludgeon sun of India knocked him down, and that fall from his horse finished the business, and there he lies.  But he’ll get up, and he might have accepted the seat and spared me my probation:  he’s not married, I am, I have a wife, and Master Philip divides me against my domestic self, he does.  But let that be:  I serve duty too.  Not a word to our friend up yonder.  It’s a secret with a time-fuse warranted to explode safe enough when the minutes are up, and make a powerful row when it does.  It is all right over there, Father Boyle, I suppose?’

‘A walk over! a pure ceremonial,’ said the priest, and he yawned frightfully.

‘You’re for a nap to recompose you, my dear friend,’ remarked the captain.

‘But you haven’t confided anything of it to Mrs. Adister?’

’Not a syllable; no.  That’s to come.  There’s my contest!  I had urgent business in Ireland, and she ’s a good woman, always willing to let me go.  I count on her kindness, there ’s no mightier compliment to one’s wife.  She’ll know it when it’s history.  She’s fond of history.  Ay, she hates fiction, and so I’m proud to tell her I offer her none.  She likes a trifling surprise too, and there she has it.  Oh! we can whip up the business to a nice little bowl of froth-flummery.  But it’s when the Parliamentary voting is on comes the connubial pull.  She’s a good woman, a dear good soul, but she’s a savage patriot; and Philip might have saved his kinsman if he had liked.  He had only to say the word:  I could have done all the business for him, and no contest to follow by my fireside.  He’s on his couch—­Mars convalescent: