Three or four of the wretched, unwashed and half-fed creatures, who had fled from O’Daly’s evictions to the shelter of the furze-clad ditches outside, had been brought in and sharply questioned at the barracks, on this third day, but of what they had said the villagers knew nothing. And, now, toward evening, the excited groups of gossiping neighbors at the corners saw Jerry Higgins himself, with flushed face and apprehensive eye, being led past with his shambling cousin toward constabulary headquarters by a squad of armed policemen. Close upon the heels of this amazing spectacle came the rumor--whence started, who could tell?--that Jerry had during the day received a telegram clearly implicating him in the crime, At this, Muirisc groaned aloud. “’Tis wid you alone I want to spake,” said Kate, bluntly, to the mother superior. The April twilight was deepening the shadows in the corners of the convent’s reception hall, and mellowing into a uniformity of ugliness the faces of the four Misses O’Daly who sat on the long bench before the fireless hearth. These young women were strangers to Muirisc, and had but yesterday arrived from their country homes in Kerry or the Macroom district to enter the convent of which their remote relation was patron. They were plain, small-farmers’ daughters, with flat faces, high cheek-bones and red hands. They had risen in clumsy humility when Kate entered the room, staring in admiration at her beauty, and even more at her hat; they had silently seated themselves again at a sign from the mother superior, still staring in round-eyed wonder at this novel kind of young woman; and they clung now stolidly to their bench, in the face of Kate’s remark. Perhaps they did not comprehend it, But they understood and obeyed the almost contemptuous gesture by which the aged nun bade them leave the room. “What is it thin, _Dubhdeasa?_” asked Mother Agnes, with affectionate gravity, seating herself as she spoke. The burden of eighty years rested lightly upon the lean figure and thin, wax-like face of the nun. Only a close glance would have revealed the fine net-work of wrinkles covering this pallid skin, and her shrewd observant eyes flashed still with the keenness of youth. “Tell me, what is it?” “I’ve a broken heart in me, that’s all!” said the girl. She had walked to one of the two narrow little windows, and stood looking out, yet seeing nothing for the mist of tears that might not be kept down. Only the affectation of defiance preserved her voice from breaking. “Here there will be rest and p’ace of mind,” intoned the other. “’T is only a day more, Katie, and thin ye’ll be wan of us, wid all the worriments and throubles of the world lagues behind ye.” The girl shook her head with vehemence and paced the stone floor restlessly. “’T is I who’ll be opening the dure to ’em and bringing ’em all in here, instead. No fear, Mother Agnes, they’ll folly me wherever I go.” The other smiled gently, and shook her vailed head in turn.