‘Moya Macartney’s _alive!_’ cried the lawyer. Conseltine staggered as if he had been shot, and Blake, who had risen to his feet to make a rush at Feagus, checked himself, and stood still, swaying heavily on his feet, as he glared at the bearer of this extraordinary news. ‘Are ye mad or drunk?’ asked Conseltine, with an ashen face. ‘I’m neither, sir,’ answered Feagus. ‘God be good to me, I’m too sober for my pace of mind! I tell ye Moya Macartney’s alive. I’ve seen her.’ Conseltine stared at him like a man newly awakened from a nightmare, as he went on: ‘’Twas last night, in the churchyard down by the lake. I was passin’ by, and I saw a woman standing there among the graves, and old Peebles coming along the road. Thinks I, “I’ll have a fine story to tell my lord next time I dine with him,” and I just slipped behind a gravestone and listened. He didn’t know her till she _told_ him who she was--Moya Macartney, who’s been drowned and in her grave this eighteen years! Holy Moses! I’m wringing wet only to think of it!’ ‘Get on, man, get on!’ said Conseltine hoarsely. ‘I kept as still as death,’ continued Feagus, ‘though ’twas all I could do to hold meself from cryin’ out when I heard her say “I’m Moya Macartney.” Then she went on to say that she’d come back to the old place to see the boy, and at that very minute he kem along the road singin’.’ ‘Desmond?’ cried Conseltine. ‘Desmond himself,’ said the lawyer. ‘Peebles cried out to him, and he comes into the churchyard and talks with Moya.’ ‘For God’s sake go on,’ cried Conseltine; ‘what did they say?’ ‘She never let on who she was. She said she was a poor wandering creature who wanted to give him her blessin’. And she did; and she cried, and he cried, and Peebles cried, and I was near cryin’ meself,--it was so affectin’!’ ‘Well?’ said Conseltine. ‘And what was the upshot of it all?’ ‘Faith, there was no upshot at all,’ said Feagus. ‘The boy went away no worse than he kem, promisin’ not to lave the district till he’d seen ould Peebles once more.’ ‘If this is true----’ cried Conseltine, shaken out of his ordinary cynical calm by the news; then he stopped short, staring before him with a haggard face. ‘True, is it?’ cried Feagus. ‘Go and see for yourself. She’s staying incog, at Larry’s mill.’ ‘And Peebles knows it,’ said Conseltine. ‘By Heaven! I thought something had happened. The old rascal’s been going about all day long as full o’ mystery as an egg’s full o’ meat. If Henry hears of this!’ ‘He won’t yet awhile,’ returned Feagus. ‘She swore Peebles to silence till she hersilf gave him leave to speak.’ ‘My God!’ said Conseltine, scarcely above his breath. ‘What’s to be done? We’re standing on a mine of gunpowder while that woman’s in the district.’ Blake laughed. He had been as much astonished at the first hearing of the news as either of his companions, but by this time had shaken himself back into his usual condition of half-sodden, half-ferocious humour.