‘I was married to Lord Kilpatrick,’ said Moya, ‘by a man calling himself the Reverend Father Ryan O’Connor.’ ‘Lord guide us!’ ejaculated the old Scot. ‘And do ye think ’Twas Patrick Blake?’ ‘I _know_ it was Patrick Blake,’ replied Moya. ‘That much I’m sure of.’ ‘But how do you ken it?’ asked the bewildered Peebles. ‘Sure ‘twould be too long a story to tell ye now. ’Twas only lately that an accident put me on the track. It took time and trouble to get Ryan O’Connor and Patrick Blake into the same skin, but I did it. And now, all that remains to be learned is just whether Blake was ever a priest, or whether his office was as false as his name. Will ye do that for me, Mr. Peebles? ’Tis not for my sake I ask it, but for my son’s--for Desmond’s!’ Peebles had fallen into a sitting posture on a low stone dyke, and sat staring at her like a man bewitched. ‘Moya! Moya Macartney! D’ye ken what ye’re sayin’? Oh! my head will rive with the dingin’ ye’ve started in my brains. Blake married ye! Blake a priest! Why, woman!’ he cried, suddenly straightening himself, ‘if that’s so, ye’re Lady Kilpatrick!’ ‘Desmond would be Lord Kilpatrick,’ Moya answered simply. ‘’Tis for his sake, Mr. Peebles, that I ask you for help; not for mine, God knows. There were times,’ she went on, after another long pause, ‘long, long ago, when I’d have given my life to hold him--Henry Kilpatrick--in my arms for just one minute--times when all the shame and sorrow he’d brought on the poor ignorant girl who’d loved him seemed nothing--when, if the broad sea had not been betwixt us, I’d have gone to him and said, “Take me as your misthress, your servant, anything--let me see your face and hear your voice now and then, one day in the year, and I’ll follow ye barefoot through the world.” But they’ve gone, long since, and all my love and all my anger are gone with them. As to bein’ Lady Kilpatrick,’ she went on, with a short and mirthless laugh, ‘’tis not the chance of that that brings me here. A fine lady I’d make for any lord, wouldn’t I? and much at me aise I’d be among the grand folk he’d introduce me to? But Desmond’s a gintleman--as good a gintleman as any in Ireland, as Henry himself--and if the title’s his by rights, he shall have it. _I_ shan’t trouble him. I shall go as I came, when I’ve seen him happy and honoured in his place. The thought has been food and drink, fire and shelter, to me these months past, since God sent the message that it might be so. Will you help me, Mr. Peebles?’