Her voice trembled at the last words; and as she concluded, she wrung his hand once more affectionately, and moved hurriedly away. Forester looked after her with a tender interest. For the first time in his life he heard her sob. “Yes,” thought he, as he lay back and covered his eyes with his hand, “she, too, has loved, and loved unhappily.” There are few sympathies stronger, not even those of illness itself, than connect those whose hearts have struggled under unrequited affection; and so, for many an hour as he travelled, Forester's thoughts recurred to Miss Daly, and the last troubled accents of her parting speech. Perhaps he did not dwell the less on that theme because it carried him away from his own immediate hopes and fears,--emotions that rendered him almost irritable by their intensity. While on the road, Forester travelled with all the speed he could accomplish. His weakness did not permit of his being many hours in a carriage, and he endeavored to compensate for this by rapid travelling at the time. His impatience to get forward was, however, such that he scarcely arrived at any halting-place without ordering horses to be at once got ready, so that, when able, he resumed the road without losing a moment. In compliance with this custom, the carriage was standing all ready with its four posters at the door of the inn of Castle Blayney; while Forester, overcome by fatigue and exhaustion, had thrown himself on the bed and fallen asleep. The rattling crash of a mail-coach and its deep-toned horn suddenly awoke him: he started, and looked at his watch. Was it possible? It was nearly midnight; he must have slept more than three hours! Half gratified by the unaccustomed rest, half angry at the lapse of time, he arose to depart. The night was the reverse of inviting; a long-threatened storm had at last burst forth, and the rain was falling in torrents, while the wind, in short and fitful gusts, shook the house to its foundation, and scattered tiles and slates over the dreary street. So terrible was the hurricane, many doubts were entertained that the mail could proceed further; and when it did at length set forth, gloomy prognostics of danger--dark pictures of precipices, swollen torrents, and broken bridges--were rife in the bar and the landlord's room. These arguments, if they could be so called, were all renewed when Forester called for his bill, as a preparation to depart, and all the perils that ever happened by land or by water recapitulated to deter him. “The middle arch of the Slaney bridge was tottering when the up-mail passed three hours before. A horse and cart were just fished out of Mooney's pond, but no driver as yet discovered. The forge at the cross roads was blown down, and the rafters were lying across the highway.” These, and a dozen other like calamities, were bandied about, and pitched like shuttlecocks from side to side, as the impatient traveller descended the stairs.