“I’ll tell you what it is, Patsy. The sooner you’re out of this the better. There’s not the least difficulty about escaping. The Field Marshal thinks he’s a tremendous swell at conspiracies of all sorts; but as a matter of fact he’s a perfect fool, and I have the lock loosened on the door this minute. You can walk out any time you like; and the best time in my opinion will be to-night.” “And why wouldn’t you go yourself, doctor, if it’s as easy as all that?” “I don’t want to go,” said the doctor. “I’m very well contented where I am. It’s much better for you to go.” “How would it do if the both of us went?” “It wouldn’t do at all. I tell you I want to stay. I don’t want to escape. But you must. I don’t want the police here searching for me.” “Be damn, then, but I won’t go either! As sure as ever I went they’d have me hanged for murdering you and that wouldn’t suit me at all.” “Don’t be a fool, Patsy. How can they hang you for murdering me when I’m alive?” “But--but--without I’d bring them here to see you they’d never believe that you weren’t dead. What with the young lady going round the country cursing like mad at them that killed you, and the old lord telling the police it was me and Jimmy O’Loughlin done it, what chance would a poor man like myself have against them? They’d have me hanged, I’m telling you.” “I’ll give you two notes,” said Dr. O’Grady; “one to Lord Manton, and one to Jimmy O’Loughlin, and between the three of you it’ll be a queer thing if you can’t keep the police quiet and stop all this silly rot about my being murdered.” “Will you give me a writing to the young lady herself?” “I will not. I know very well what she’d do if she heard I was here. She’d come straight down after me.” “I’m not saying but what she might. From what I seen of her I’d say she’s just the sort of a young lady that would.” “Well, then, can’t you understand that the last thing in the world I want is for her to know where I am? If I could have got a note to her at the first go off, before she came to Clonmore, it would have been all right. I’d have told her that I was detained here in attendance on an important case, and that she was to stay at home and not come near Clonmore till I sent her word. But that silly old ass of a Field Marshal thought he knew better than I did how to deal with a girl, and he wouldn’t let me send the note. Then you and Jimmy O’Loughlin and Lord Manton, and I suppose every soul about the place, go stuffing her up with a pack of lies until----” “Be damn, doctor! but that’s a hard word. What we did was for the best. You wouldn’t have us tell the creature the truth, and her thinking all the time that you’d rather die than desert her?” “Tell her the truth! What truth?” “That you were off to America so as you wouldn’t have to pay Jimmy O’Loughlin what you owed him.”