"I am better where I am," Mona whispered, and that was her sole answer to the deaf man's too audible questions. And Hommy, after a pause, assented to the statement with his familiar comment, "The Bishop's a rael ould archangel, so he is." Thereupon Kerry turned her gaze from the wall and said, "Didn't I tell ye, mam, that he wasn't dead?" "Who?" "Why--him--him that we mayn't name--_him_." "Hush, dear Kerry, he died long ago." "I tell ye, mam, he's a living man, and coming back--I know it--he's coming back immadient--I saw him." "Drop it, woman, it's drames," said Hommy. "I saw him last night as plain as plain--wearing a long gray sack and curranes on his feet, and a queer sort of hat." "It must have been the priest that you saw in your dream, dear Kerry." The sick woman raised herself on one elbow, and answered eagerly, "I tell you no, mam, but him--_him_." "Lie still, Kerry; you will be worse if you uncover yourself to the cool air." There was a moment's quiet, and then the blind woman said finally, "I'm going where I'll have my eyes same as another body." At that Hommy's rugged face broadened to a look of gruesome sorrow, and he renewed his exertions with the shovel. IV At seven o'clock that day the darkness had closed in. A bright turf fire burned in a room in Bishop's Court, and the Bishop sat before it with his slippered feet on a sheepskin rug. His face was mellower than of old, and showed less of strength and more of sadness. Mona stood at a tea-table by his side, cutting slices of bread and butter. A white face, with eyes of fear, looked in at the dark window. It was Davy Fayle. He was but little older to look upon for the seven years that had gone heavily over his troubled head. His simple look was as vacant and his lagging lip hung as low; but his sluggish intellect had that night become suddenly charged with a ready man's swiftness. Mona went to the door. "Come in," she said; but Davy would not come. He must speak with her outside, and she went out to him. He was trembling visibly. "What is it?" she said. "Mistress Mona," said Davy, in a voice of great emotion, "it's as true as the living God." "What?" she said. "He's alive--ould Kerry said true--he's alive, and coming back." Mona glanced into his face by the dull light that came through the window. His eyes, usually dull and vacant, were aflame with a strange fire. She laid one hand on the door-jamb, and said, catching her breath, "Davy, remember what the men said long ago--that they saw him lying in the snow." "He's alive, I'm telling you--I've seen him with my own eyes." "Where?" "I went down to Patrick this morning to meet the priest coming up--but it's no priest at all--it's--it's--it's _him_." Again Mona drew her breath audibly. "Think what you are saying, Davy. If it should not be true! Oh, if you should be mistaken!" "It's Bible truth, Mistress Mona--I'll go bail on it afore God A'mighty." "The priest, you say?"