By the light of a candle I took the book I had found from my pocket to look at it again. My mother's hand on the cover called back all the old memories of my childhood--how she sang to Tim and me these very ballads, and taught us to say them after her; how she always seemed as much a stranger in Fanad as this little English book seemed on the ledge at Kilgorman. There, too, between the leaves, were a few pressed flowers, and--what was this? A little piece of thin paper fluttered down to my feet, written over in my mother's hand, but, oh, so feebly and painfully. With beating heart I held it to the light, and made out these words,-- "If you love God, whoever you are, seek below the great hearth; and what you find there, see to it, as you hope for grace. God send this into the hands of one who loves truth and charity. Amen." CHAPTER EIGHT. A RACE FOR A LIFE. My impulse, when I read that sad message from my dead mother, was to rise from my bed and saddle the horse and return, cost what it might, to Kilgorman. Had I done so I might perchance have saved myself months, even years, of trouble. But in a weak moment I let my fatigue and my irresolution and my fear of the ghost get the better of me, and decided to put off till to-morrow what I should have done to-day. If in after years my worst enemy had to confess that what I did I did quickly, it was due to the lesson which this one act of procrastination taught me. Putting everything together, the meaning of the letter seemed pretty clear. My mother, distraught by the sudden death of her master and mistress, and believing herself to be dying too, had desired to ease her mind of a secret (I knew not what) which lay upon it; but being in dread of it falling into wrong hands, had written it and hidden it in some place, leaving this slender clue to the chance discoverer of her little book of ballads. How was it possible to believe otherwise than that Providence had, after fourteen years, placed that clue in the hands of her son, and thereby imposed upon me a duty from which, whatever it was, I should have been undutiful, and a coward to boot, had I shrunk? But, as I tell you, for one night I shrunk from it, resolving that on the morrow I would obey the summons. But many to-morrows were to come and go before the promise could be fulfilled. His honour returned at dead of night from Derry, and when, as usual, I presented myself to wait at breakfast, I was surprised to find him seated there with his wife and daughter. Miss Kit was in her wonted high spirits, and alarmed me by plunging at once into the story of yesterday's adventure. "Father," she said, "why is Kilgorman all barred and bolted against its future mistress? Here was I, yesterday, standing humbly like a beggar on the doorstep of our own house, and obliged to slink away disappointed after all." His honour looked up with an angry flush on his pale face.