"Certainly you will; and I wish you now to listen to me, that you may know what it is that you will then have to do. In the first place you will be asked, I presume, by one gentleman whether you were willingly eloping with Captain Ussher?" Feemy shuddered as the name was pronounced. "And of course you must answer that truly--that you were doing so. Then another gentleman will ask you whether you were absolutely walking off with him when the blow was struck which killed Captain Ussher; and, Feemy, you must also answer that truly. Now the question is, can you remember what you were doing when the blow was struck? Tell me now, Feemy, can you remember?" "No, Father John, I remember nothing; from the time when he took me by the arm, as I sat upon the tree, till Thady told me he was dead, I remember nothing. If they kill me, I can tell them nothing." "Feemy, dear, don't sob so! That's all you'll have to say. Merely say that--merely say that you were sitting on a tree. Were you waiting for Captain Ussher there?" "Yes." "And that whilst you were there you saw Thady; isn't that so?" "Yes." "And Ussher then raised you by the arm, and then you fainted?" "I don't know what happened to me; but I heard nothing, and saw nothing, till Thady lifted me from the ground, and told me he was dead." "That's all, Feemy. Surely there's no great difficulty in saying that--when it'll save your own brother's life to say so; and it's only the truth. You can say as much in court as you've just said to me, can't you? Mrs. McKeon 'll be there with you--and I'll be there with you. You'll only have to say in court what you've just said to me." "I'll try, Father John. But you don't know what it is for one like me to be talking with so many horrid faces round one--with the heart dead within--to be asked such horrid questions, and everybody listening. I'll do as you bid me; I'll go with them when they fetch me--but I know I'll die before I've said all they will want me to say." Father John tried to comfort and strengthen her, but she was in great bodily pain, and he soon saw that he had better leave her; she had at any rate shown him by her answers to his questions, that the evidence she could give would be such as would most tend to Thady's acquittal; and, moreover, he perceived from her manner, that though the feelings which she entertained towards her brother were of a most painful description, she would, nevertheless, not be actuated by them in any of the answers she might give.