When his son came back from abroad, he was more amazed than anyone else. The slow, plodding manner of late years had completely disappeared from his father, and instead he encountered the indomitable energy, the insatiable thirst for activity, and a judgment clearer and sounder than he had ever found in any other man. The newly-married couple took a small house in Glengowra. Every day Eugene went in to business, and every day returned to Glengowra in time for dinner. While Eugene was away his father had written to him, saying he had paid the second call, and that, with the help of Lavirotte, he would be able to pay the third, which would, he assumed, be the last. In Dublin the opinion was that the third call would certainly be the last. The determination was to wind the whole thing up with the greatest possible despatch, and hide its infamy away for ever. It was possible for accountants, who had charge of the affair, to go over the share book, and place opposite every name, which had hitherto proved solvent, a very close approximation of the resources at the disposal of each; and it gradually oozed out that there would be no use in having a call of anything less than five hundred pounds, for if they had two hundred and fifty now, and another two hundred and fifty later on, they would simply have the same names recurring, since the men who could meet the two hundred and fifty could meet the five. In Rathclare, at last, people began to believe that someone must have promised to sustain O'Donnell at the final moment, for all agreed that unless the old man had lost his reason, there could be now no doubt he was certain to tide over the affair. He had made arrangements one, two, three years in advance. He was in treaty for purchasing adjoining buildings with a view to incorporating them in his vast store. He had ordered new lighters to be laid down for him in the dockyard. Up to this he had always refused the mayoralty of the town, although he had for many years been a member of the corporation. Now he allowed himself to be put forward as a candidate for next year. No bankrupt could be mayor. From first to last he had never once sought any communication with the Vernons. Now he seemed to think his old friend not so great a criminal as at one time he appeared. Although he could not entirely forgive him, he spoke less harshly of him than of old, and was heard even to say once: "Poor devil, how do we know how he was dragged into it?" Meanwhile, Lionel Crawford and Dominique Lavirotte wrought with the energy of desperate men in the basement of St. Prisca's Tower. By day they dug and delved, Lavirotte, being younger, carrying the fruit of their labour to the top of the tower. The slow and cautious mode of procedure adopted by the old man was too tedious for the fiery-hearted Frenchman.