"Yes, put it that way if you will. At one time I believed your hand was guiding me up to the altar, beyond which lay love and life, and all manner of good and bright things. We never reached the altar. But something happened, and there was a dull, dead pause in life, like the winter sleep of a lizard or the trance of the Sleeping Beauty, and then I awoke, and, to my horror, found the altar had been changed into a tomb, and the Fairy Prince into Death. There was no time for love. I had slept through the period of love. I had no power to hate, but I had the power and the will to die. You will help me?" "Not to die, Marion. I will help you to solve the mystery of this Fahey, and the relations between him and Mr. Davenport, and then when all has been cleared up, you may----" He held out his hand pleadingly. "Yes," she said, coldly, firmly, "when all has been cleared up, I may say--good-bye." CHAPTER XL. AN EXPEDITION PROPOSED. When Jerry O'Brien said there was absolutely nothing to be done in Kilcash, he had told the naked truth. The weather was still far from genial, and Jerry and Alfred Paulton were the only visitors in that Waterford village. For a man of active habits, in full bodily and mental vigour, the place would have been the very worst in the world; but for an invalid who had never been a busy man, it was everything the most exacting could desire. If Alfred's mind had only been as peaceful as his surroundings, he would have picked up strength visibly from hour to hour. But his mind was not at ease. For good or evil, he did not care which, he had given his heart to that woman, and now once more the shadow of this objectionable, this disreputable man Blake, had come between her and him. The most disquieting circumstance in the case was that Blake had not intruded, but had been summoned by her. It is true that on closer examination this did not seem to point to a love affair between the two; for unless a woman was fully engaged to a man, she would scarcely, he being her lover, summon him to her side, under the circumstances in Mrs. Davenport's case. Such thoughts and doubts were not the best salve for a hurt constitution; and although Alfred recovered strength and colour from day to day, he did not derive as much benefit from Kilcash as if his mind had been even as untroubled as it had been when the journey from Dulwich began. Jerry was by no means delighted with affairs. He put the best face he could on things, but still he was not content. As far as he was concerned, the detested Fishery Commissioners had gone to sleep, but there was no forecasting the duration of their slumber. Any moment they might shake themselves, growl, wake, and swallow up all his substance. "Until they are done with this part of the unhappy country, I shall feel as if the country was overrun by 'empty tigers,' and I was the only wholesome piece of flesh after which the man-eaters hankered."