This was the first time that Thady had heard that a verdict of murder had been found against him before the Coroner, and though it was only what he expected, nevertheless the certainty, now that it reached him, almost made him change his mind and return to Aughacashel. The remembrance, however, of that weary day, and the feeling that even though he were there, he would assuredly be ultimately taken, strengthened his resolution, and he said, "No, Mary, I've had enough of running away already. But tell me; how's Feemy?" "Why, thin, Mr. Thady, she's nothing much to boast of; since she was in Carrick, yesterday, she's been very bad intirely." "What is it ails her? It's--it's that man's death, isn't it, Mary?" "'Deed, Mr. Thady, I s'pose that war the first on it. Poor young lady! in course she feels it.--Wouldn't I feel it, av any one was to knock poor Denis on the head?--not that it's the same thing, altogether, for the Captain wasn't her lawful wedded husband.--Not that I'm saying agin you, Mr Thady, for what ye did." "Never mind about that, Mary; what I've done is my own look out. But would Feemy see me, do you think?" "See you, Mr. Thady! How could she see you, an' she in a raging fever in bed at Mrs. McKeon's? in course she couldn't see you." "Good God! and is she so bad as that?" "Faith then, she is, very bad intirely; at laste, Docther Blake says so." "It's very well, any way, that she's at Drumsna, instead of here at Ballycloran. Mrs. McKeon must be a kind woman to take her at such a time as this. And what's the owld man doing here by himself?" "He's very quare in his ways, they do be saying; but I didn't see him meself yet; I'm going down to mind him, meself, this blessed moment." "Why, isn't the two girls in it still?" "Yes, they is, Mr. Thady; but they got frighted with the quare ways the owld man brought back with him from Carrick. He's wake in the head, they say, Mr. Thady, since he war up afore the gintlemen at the inquest; an' as the two girls wor frighted with 'im, an' as I am, maybe, a bit sthronger, an' a thrifle owlder nor they, Father John said I'd better step down an' mind him a bit; an' when all was settled, that he would see my expinses war paid." "Well, Mary, good night! Be kind and gentle with the owld man, for he's enough on him jist now to unsettle his mind, av it were sthronger than it iver was; and don't tell him you see me here, for it would only be making him more onasy." "Good night, thin, an' God bless you, Mr. Thady," said Mary. "You've a peck of throubles on yer head, this night," she added to herself, as she walked up the avenue, "an' it's little you did to desarve 'em, onless working hard night an' day war a sin. Well, God forgive us! shure you're betther off still, than the gay man you stretched the other night;" and she went on to commence her new business--that of watching and consoling Larry Macdermot in his idiotcy.