“I think of nothing,” said Cooleen Bawn, “but my love for you. If you were not surrounded by danger as you are, if the whoop of vengeance were not on your trail, if death and a gibbet were not in the background, I could part with you; but now that danger, vengeance, and death, are hovering about you, I shall and must partake of them with you. And listen, Reilly; after all it is the best plan. Papa, if I accompany you--supposing that we are taken--will relent for my sake. I know his love for me. His affection for me will overcome all his prejudices against you. Then let us fly. To-night you will be taken. Your rival will triumph over both of us; and I--I, oh! I shall not survive it. Save me, then, Reilly, and let me fly with you.” “God knows,” replied Reilly, with deep emotion, “if I suffered myself to be guided by the impulse of my heart, I would yield to wishes at once so noble and disinterested. I cannot, however, suffer my affection, absorbing and inexpressible as it is, to precipitate your ruin. I speak not of myself, nor of what I may suffer. When we reflect, however, my beloved girl, upon the state of the country, and of the law, as it operates against the liberty and property of Catholics, we must both admit the present impossibility of an elopement without involving you in disgrace. You know that until some relaxation of the laws affecting marriage between Catholics and Protestants takes place, an union between us is impossible; and this fact it is which would attach disgrace to you, and a want of honor, principle, and gratitude to me. We should necessarily lead the lives of the guilty, and seek the wildest fastnesses of the mountain solitudes and the oozy caverns of the bleak and solitary hills.” “But I care not. I am willing to endure it all for your sake.” “What!--the shame, the misinterpretation, the imputed guilt?” “Neither care I for shame or imputed guilt, so long as I am innocent, and you safe.” “Concealment, my dearest girl, would be impossible. Such a hue and cry would be raised after us as would render nothing short of positive invisibility capable of protecting us from our enemies. Then your father!--such a step might possibly break his heart; a calamity which would fill your mind with remorse to the last day of your life!” She burst again into tears, and replied, “But as for you, what can be done to save you from the toils of your unscrupulous and powerful enemies?”