“Then, without exciting observation, you can all get in better at the back door of the house, and Miss Annaly can go up the back stairs to Lady Annaly’s room, without meeting any one; and you, Lady O’Shane,” added he, in a low voice, “order up supper, and say nothing of what has passed. Miss Black, you hear what I desire--no gossiping.” To get to the back door they had to walk round the house, and in their way they passed the gardener’s. The surgeon had just arrived. “Go on, ladies, pray,” said Sir Ulick; “what stops you?” “‘Tis I stop the way, Sir Ulick,” said Lady O’Shane, “to speak a word to the surgeon. If you find the man in any dangerous way, for pity’s sake don’t let him die at our gardener’s--indeed, the bringing him here at all I think a very strange step and encroachment of Mr. Ormond’s. It will make the whole thing so public--and the people hereabouts are so revengeful--if any thing should happen to him, it will be revenged on our whole family--on Sir Ulick in particular.” “No danger--nonsense, my dear.” But now this idea had seized Lady O’Shane, it appeared to her a sufficient reason for desiring to remove the man even this night. She asked why he could not be taken to his own home and his own people; she repeated, that it was very strange of Mr. Ormond to take such liberties, as if every thing about Castle Hermitage was quite at his disposal. One of the men who had carried the hand-barrow, and who was now standing at the gardener’s door, observed, that Moriarty’s _people_ lived five miles off. Ormond, who had gone into the house to the wounded man, being told what Lady O’Shane was saying, came out; she repeated her words as he re-appeared. Naturally of sudden violent temper, and being now in the highest state of suspense and irritation, he broke out, forgetful of all proper respect. Miss Black, who was saying something in corroboration of Lady O’Shane’s opinion, he first attacked, pronouncing her to be an unfeeling, _canting_ hypocrite: then, turning to Lady O’Shane, he said that she might send the dying man away, if she pleased; but that if she did, he would go too, and that never while he existed would he enter her ladyship’s doors again. Ormond made this threat with the air of a superior to an inferior, totally forgetting his own dependent situation, and the dreadful circumstances in which he now stood. “You are drunk, young man! My dear Ormond, you don’t know what you are saying,” interposed Sir Ulick. At his voice, and the kindness of his tone, Ormond recollected himself. “Forgive me,” said he, in a very gentle tone. “My head certainly is not--Oh! may you never feel what I have felt this last hour! If this man die--Oh! consider.”