“Of the very greatest utility, sir,--not alone from his legal knowledge, but from his consummate acquaintance with the world and its modes of thinking.” “Can you send for him? Can you get him here without exciting suspicion?” said my father; for already had terror seized hold on him, and even before he knew it was he entangled in the toils. “I can have him here within an hour, sir, and without any risk whatever; for he is my own law adviser, and in constant intercourse with me.” Fagan now persuaded my father to lie down and try to obtain some sleep, promising to awake him the moment that Crowther arrived. CHAPTER XIV. A CONFERENCE Scarcely had my father laid himself down on the bed, when he fell off into a heavy sleep. Fatigue, exhaustion, and loss of blood all combined to overcome him, and he lay motionless in the same attitude he at first assumed. Fagan came repeatedly to the bedside, and, opening the curtains slightly, gazed on the cold, impassive features with a strange intensity. One might have supposed that the almost deathlike calm of the sleeper's face would have defied every thought or effort of speculation; but there he sat, watching it as though, by dint of patience and study, he might at length attain to reading what was passing within that brain. At the slightest sound that issued from the lips, too, he would bend down to try and catch its meaning. Perhaps, at moments like these, a trace of impatience might be detected in his manner; but, for the most part, his hard, stern features showed no sign of emotion, and it was in all his accustomed self-possession that he descended to the small and secluded chamber where Crowther sat awaiting him. “Still asleep, Fagan?” asked the lawyer, looking hastily up from the papers and documents he had been perusing. “He is asleep, and like enough to continue so,” replied the other, slowly, while he sank down into an arm-chair, and gave himself up to deep reflection. “I have been thinking a good deal over what you have told me,” said Crowther, “and I own I see the very gravest objections to his surrendering himself.” “My own opinion!” rejoined Fagan, curtly. “Even if it were an ordinary duel, with all the accustomed formalities of time, place, and witnesses, the temper of the public mind is just now in a critical state on these topics; MacNamara's death and that unfortunate affair at Kells have made a deep impression. I'd not trust too much to such dispositions. Besides, the chances are they would not admit him to bail, so that he 'd have to pass three, nearly four, months in Newgate before he could be brought to trial.” “He'd not live through the imprisonment. It would break his heart, if it did not kill him otherwise.” “By no means unlikely.”