The crash was coming, as none perceived more clearly than Mr. Curran. Might anything avert it? Nothing. What would happen to cherished ones in the throes of the hurricane? But how bootless was such self-communing! _Fais ce que devra!_ Mr. Curran was determined not to shrink from duty to the soil which gave him birth. Though the days of Roman virtue were overpast, he would sacrifice his heart's treasure on the altar if need were, trusting to God's mercy for the rest; and it was the kernel of his project to keep watch over the society--with it in the spirit, but not of it in the body. He was wont to say with pride that he had never wittingly snubbed any man who was in earnest. Self-willed himself, he respected those who strove to make themselves, and respected men doubly if their aspirations were unselfish. He said to himself that the motives of this small self-sacrificing band were pure where all else was foul; that though for their own sakes he dared not espouse their tenets openly, yet it would be a coward's act to deprive them of his countenance and advice because they walked in danger. So he shook his head at time-serving Arthur Wolfe, and went his independent way, and waited for his chosen guests each Wednesday afternoon, caring no fig for Lord Clare's menaces, sorry only that he continued to exist. He stood straddle-legged at the hour of five on a reception-day, among the dishevelled laurestinus bushes, which he was pleased to call his avenue, swinging his portly watch by its ribbon--as his way was when guests were late. The Priory was a snug abode, if not endowed with beauty; but then the works of man in Ireland are seldom in beautiful accordance with the handiwork of God. It was a frightful ungainly villa erected in the hideous style of Irish suburban architecture, with attenuated slits of windows and tall consumptive doors set half-way up in a bald waste of rough whitewashed wall. The usual alpine stair led to the entrance; arranged, as it appeared, for the purpose of setting an honoured guest on a glorious pinnacle of observation, till slipshod Kathy could hitch up her draggled skirts to let him in. From the parlour window might be admired a prospect of barn, dunghill, dovecote, horsepond, piggery, which offered to the nose in summer a bouquet of varied sweets; while the usual yard or two of road swept round the usual dark circular grassplot with a mouldy rhododendron in the centre of it. The orchard behind was christened by its owner his pistol-gallery, but it was at the same time a forum; for there might Mr. Curran frequently be seen of a morning, declaiming with Demosthenic energy, whilst he lodged bullets at intervals in the bark of special trees.