Thady pursued his road to the Cottage, without meeting anyone else, and with some hesitation knocked at the priest's door. His heart palpitated violently within him as he waited some little time for an answer. It was about eleven, and he knew that at that hour Father John would still be up, if he were at home, though Judy would probably have retired to her slumbers. He was right in his calculation; for in a short time he heard the heavy step of Father John in the hall, and then the rusty door-key grated in the lock. Thady's knees shook beneath him as he listened to the rising latch. How should he meet Father John's eyes after what he had done? How should he find words to tell him that he had broken the solemn vow that he had taken on the holy scriptures, and had, in his first difficulty, flown to the disreputable security to be found in the haunts of such men as Joe Reynolds and Dan Kennedy. However, this he would have to tell him; for the door was now open, and there stood the priest, with his eyes fixed on Thady's sad face and soiled appearance. Thady had not had his clothes off for the last two nights, and they now bore all the soil and stains of his two midnight walks; his countenance was pale in the extreme, and, never full or healthy, now seemed more thin and wan, than forty-eight hours' sorrow could possibly have made it. He was much fatigued, for his shoes had become soaked with water in the moist grounds through which he had passed and repassed, and his feet were blistered with his long and unaccustomed walks. When Father John saw him, his heart melted within him at the sight of the young man's sad and melancholy figure. We already know that from the moment he had first heard of the catastrophe, he had made excuses in his own heart for Thady; and when he had heard, as he did at the inquest, that his sister had been with Ussher when he lifted his stick against him, he had not only acquitted him in his own estimation, from anything like the crime of murder, but he also felt certain that had he been in the same situation, he would most assuredly have done the same as Thady had done. He had been much surprised at the Coroner's verdict; he could not think how twelve men on their oath could call Ussher's death murder, when it so evidently appeared to him that the man stigmatised by that verdict as a murderer, had only been actuated by the praiseworthy purpose of defending his sister from disgrace and violence; and when, moreover, it was so plain that Thady's presence on the scene at the moment was accidental, and that the attack could not have been premeditated.