It seemed as if my reason came back to me at that terrible moment as suddenly as it had left me. At the report of my pistol, I had heard a loud scream in the parsonage, and almost at the same time with myself Helen rushed up to the side of my brother. "Oh!" she cried, in accents of agony, "who has done this?" "Who!" said I, bitterly, "do you ask? You have done it; but no, Helen, I do not mean it--let us carry him into the parsonage." With difficulty we lifted the body of my brother, and bearing him into the house, laid him upon a bed. Helen, who had up to this time been sustained by the necessity of exertion, fainted beside the body. I stood gazing upon them in stupid despair. The worthy pastor opened the door of the room; he had heard an unusual noise, and left his books to learn the cause. I stopped not to converse with him, I could not trust myself to speak, but stooping to the lifeless form of Helen, I imprinted a last kiss upon her pale lips, and burst from the chamber. I do not know the result of that fatal night. It may be that my brother and Helen were both restored to life and happiness. God grant that it was so. It may be that the spirits of both had already passed to another world when I broke from the room, leaving the pale and astonished pastor gazing upon the lifeless bodies of his only daughter and the young lord of the manor. Years have passed since then, and not a happy hour have their long ages borne to me; yet methinks if I could but know that my brother and Helen are living in happiness in the mansion of my fathers, much that is dark and despairing in the remnant of life would be taken from the future. That night I bade farewell to the haunts of boyhood, and the next day I was out upon the broad ocean. I had jumped aboard of a little vessel which was just weighing anchor, without asking its destination or caring where it bore me. I made brief reply to all interrogatories, merely showing a purse of gold, which was sufficient answer, inasmuch as it showed I was not to be an unprofitable part of the cargo. Seated upon the companion-way, that evening I watched the receding shores of my native isle, and as the sunlight went out on its white cliffs, leaving them in sombre shade, I felt that so had the light of my life gone out, leaving the darkness of despair forever. Reckless as I was of the future, and dark as was the past, I was not yet dead to all emotion, and I could not witness my native land fading from my view without experiencing those melancholy feelings which the endearing recollections of former years excite, embittered as they were with me by the thought that even if I ever should return to the home of my fathers, I should find no kindred to welcome me back. No wonder, then, that I felt a chilling sickness of the heart as I caught a last glimpse of the Wicklow Mountains gleaming in the warm colorings of the evening sun, as they mingled their hoary summits with the "dewy skies" of my native isle.