My father, I was sure, if he even knew that one of us was not his own boy, neither knew nor concerned himself which was which, so long as he kept his honour in good-humour. But as regarded Biddy McQuilkin, it was different. She was not ill or blind or in mortal fear when it all happened. If any one could tell, it was she. And she, unless all reports were false, slept in the pit of the guillotine in Paris, beside her last master and mistress. It was not likely that the Republic One and Indivisible, when it swept away the old couple, would overlook their faithful and inseparable attendant. So, after all, it seemed that mystery was to hang over Tim and me still. I could have been happy had the paper said outright, "Tim is the son of Terence Gorman." But to feel that as much might, with equal probability, be said of me, paralysed my purpose and obscured my path. How was I to set wrong right? As for Tim, it was evident from his brief note, written at a time when he did not know if I had survived the wreck of the _Kestrel_ or not, that the matter concerned him little compared with the rebellious undertaking on which he was just now unhappily embarked. Tim was, I knew, more of a natural gentleman than I, which might mean gentler blood. On the other hand, I, of the two of us, was less like Mike Gallagher in looks. Who was to decide between us? And meanwhile this Maurice Gorman-- That reminded me with a start of last night's business. This very man, robber of the widow, unnatural brother, and oppressor of the fatherless, was appointed for death that very morning, and might already be on his way to meet it. I confess, as I then felt, I could almost have let him run on his doom; yet when I recalled the vision in the kitchen last night of Paddy Corkill shouldering the borrowed gun, my humanity reasserted itself. How could I stand idle with a human life, however worthless, at stake? As to his being Miss Kit's father, that at the moment did not enter into my calculations; but as soon as it did, it urged my footsteps to a still more rapid stride as I made across the bleak tract for the Black Hill. The morning was grey and squally, and the mists hung low on the hill- tops, and swept now and then thickly up the valleys. But I knew the way well. Tim and I had often as boys walked there to look at the spot where Terence Gorman fell, and often, in the Knockowen days, I had driven his honour's gig past the spot on the way to Malin.