“Well, it was no interest of mine, Mr. O’Daly,” remarked Bernard, placidly, “to go over the mining contracts you’ve made as trustee during the past dozen years and figure out all the various items of the estate’s income; but I’ve done it. It makes a very curious little balance-sheet. I had intended to fetch it down with me to-day and go over it with you in your underground retreat.” “In the devil’s name, who are you?” snarled Cormac, with livid face and frightened eyes. “That’s just what I proposed we should go right and settle. If you object, why, I shall go alone. But in that case, it may happen that I shall have to discuss with the gentleman who has just arrived the peculiarities of that balance-sheet I spoke of. What do you think, eh?” O’Daly did not hesitate. “Sur, I’ll go wid you,” he said. “The O’Mahony has no head for figures. ’T would be flat injustice to bother him wid ’em, and he only newly landed.” Bernard walked lightly across the deck, humming a little tune to himself as he advanced, and baiting a short foot from where Kate stood. “O’Daly’s going ashore with me,” he remarked. “He dare not!” she answered, over her shoulder. “The O’Mahony bade him stop here.” “Well, this is more or less of a free country, and he’s changed his mind. He’s going with me. I--I want you to come, too.” “’Tis loikely!” she said, with a derisive sniff. “Kate,” he said, drawing nearer to her by a step and speaking in low, earnest tones, “I hate to plead this sort of thing; but you have nothing but candid and straightforward friendship from me. I’ve done a trifle of lying _for_ you, perhaps, but none _to_ you. I’ve worked for you as I never worked for myself. I’ve run risks for you which nothing else under the sun would have tempted me into. All that doesn’t matter. Leave that out of the question. I did it because I love you. And for that selfsame reason I come now and ask this favor of you. You can send me away afterward, if you like; but you _can’t_ bear to stop here now, thinking these things of me, and refusing to come out and learn for yourself whether they are true or false, for that would be unfair, and it’s not in your blood--in _our_ blood--to be that.” The girl neither turned to him nor spoke, but he could see the outline of her face as she bowed her head and gazed in silence at the murmuring water; and something in this sight seemed to answer him. He strode swiftly to the other side of the vessel, and exultantly waved his handkerchief in signal to the boatmen on the shore. CHAPTER XXIX--DIAMOND CUT PASTE. The O’Mahony sat once more in the living-room of his castle--sat very much at his ease, with a cigar between his teeth, and his feet comfortably stretched out toward the blazing bank of turf on the stone hearth.