“So I heard,” interrupted the other; “they told me that; and here, look here, here's Daly's bond for four thousand six hundred. Maybe he won't be so ready with his bank-notes as he was with his black ball--ay!” “But, to go back to the affair of the House--” “We won't go back to it, sir, if it's the same to you. I 'm glad, with all my heart, the folly is over,--sorra use I could see in it, except the expense, and there's plenty of that. The old families, as they call them, can't last forever, no more than old houses and old castles; there's an end of everything in time, and if Hickman waits, maybe his turn will come as others' did before him. Where 's the Darcys now, I 'd like to know?--” Here he paused and stammered, and at last stopped dead short, an expression of as much confusion as age and wrinkles would permit covering his hard, contracted features. “You say truly,” said Heffernan, finishing what he guessed to be the sentiment,--“you say truly, the Darcys have run their race; when men's incumbrances have reached the point that his have, family influence soon decays. Now, this business of Gleeson's--” Had he fired a shot close to the old man's ear he could not have startled him more effectually than by the mention of this name. “What of Gleeson?” said he, drawing in his breath, and holding on the chair with both hands. “You know that he is gone,--fled away no one knows where?” “Gleeson! Honest Tom Gleeson ran away!” exclaimed Hickman; “no, no, that's impossible,--I'd never believe that.” “Strange enough, sir, that the paragraphs here have not convinced you,” said Heffernan, taking up the newspaper which lay on the table, and where the mark of snuffy fingers denoted the very passage in question. “Ay! I did n't notice it before,” muttered the doctor, as he took up the paper, affecting to read, but in reality to conceal his own confusion. “They say the news nearly killed Darcy; he only heard it when going into the House last night, and was seized with an apoplectic fit, and carried home insensible.” This latter was, it is perhaps needless to say, pure invention of Heffernan, who found it necessary to continue talking as a means of detecting old Hickman's game. “Total ruin to that family of course results. Gleeson had raised immense sums to pay off the debts, and carried all away with him.” “Ay!” muttered the doctor, as he seemed greatly occupied in arranging his papers on the table. “You 'll be a loser too, sir, by all accounts,” added Heffernan. “Not much,--a mere trifle,” said the doctor, without looking up from the papers. “But maybe he's not gone, after all; I won't believe it yet.”