Then, turning back to Daniel O'Neill, I told him what rumour had reached my dear one of his intentions with regard to her child, and asked him to say whether there was any truth in it.

"Answer the man, Curphy," said Daniel O'Neill, and thereupon the lawyer, with almost equal insolence, turned to me and said:

"What is it you wish to know, sir?"

"Whether, if Mary O'Neill is unable from any cause to keep control of her child (which God forbid!), her father intends to take possession of it."

"Why shouldn't he? If the mother dies, for instance, her father will be the child's legal guardian."

"But if by that time the father is dead too--what then?"

"Then the control of the child will--with the consent of the court--devolve upon his heir and representative."

"Meaning this lady?" I asked, pointing to the woman MacLeod, who was now standing at the back of Daniel O'Neill's chair.

"Possibly."

"And what will she do with it?"

"Do with it?"

The lawyer was running his fingers through his long beard and trying to look perplexed.

"Mr. Curphy, I'll ask you not to pretend to be unable to understand me.

If and when this lady gets possession of Mary O'Neill's child, what is she going to do with it?"

"Very well," said the advocate, seeing I meant business, "since my client permits me to speak, I'll tell you plainly. Whatever the child's actual parentage ... perhaps you know best... ."

"Go on, sir."

"Whatever the child's parentage, it was born in wedlock. Even the recent divorce proceedings have not disturbed that. Therefore we hold that the child has a right to the inheritance which in due time should come to Mary O'Neill's offspring by the terms of the settlement upon her husband."

It was just as I expected, and every drop of my blood boiled at the thought of my darling's child in the hands of that frozen-hearted woman.

"So that is the law, is it?"

"That is the law in Ellan."

"In the event of Mary O'Neill's death, and her father's death, her child and all its interests will come into the hands of... ."

"Of her father's heir and representative."

"Meaning, again, this lady?"

"Probably."

The woman at the back of the chair began to look restless.

"I don't know, sir," she said, "if your repeated references to me are intended to reflect upon my character, or my ability to bring up the child well and look after its interests properly."

"They are, madam--they most certainly and assuredly are," I answered.

"Daniel!" she cried.

"Be quiet, gel," said Daniel O'Neill. "Let the man speak. We'll see what he has come for presently. Go on, sir."

I took him at his word, and was proceeding to say that as I understood things it was intended to appeal to the courts in order to recover (nominally for the child) succession to the money which had been settled on Mary O'Neill's husband at the time of their marriage, when the old man cried, struggling again to his feet:

"There you are! The money! It's the money the man's after! He took my daughter, and now he's for taking my fortune--what's left of it, anyway.

He shan't, though! No, by God he shan't! ... Go back to your woman, sir. Do you hear me?--your woman, and tell her that neither you nor she shall touch one farthing of my fortune. I'm seeing to that now. It's what we're here for to-night--before that damnable operation to-morrow, for nobody knows what will come of it. She has defied me and ruined me, and made me the byword of the island, God's curse on her... ."

"Daniel! Daniel!" cried the MacLeod woman, trying to pacify the infuriated madman and to draw him back to his seat.

I would have given all I had in the world if Daniel O'Neill could have been a strong man at that moment, instead of a poor wisp of a thing with one foot in the grave. But I controlled myself as well as I could and said:

"Mr. O'Neill, your daughter doesn't want your fortune, and as for myself, you and your money are no more to me than an old hen sitting on a nest of addled eggs. Give it to the lady at the back of your chair--she has earned it, apparently."

"Really," said the Bishop, who had at length recovered from Father Dan's onslaught. "Really, Sir What-ever-your-name is, this is too outrageous--that you should come to this lonely house at this time of night, interrupting most urgent business, not to speak of serious offices, and make injurious insinuations against the character of a respectable person--you, sir, who had the audacity to return openly to the island with the partner of your sin, and to lodge her in the house of your own mother--your own mother, sir, though Heaven knows what kind of mother it can be who harbours her son's sin-laden mistress, his woman, as our sick friend says... ."

Lord! how my hands itched! But controlling myself again, with a mighty effort I said:

"Monsignor, I don't think I should advise you to say that again."

"Why not, sir?"

"Because I have a deep respect for your cloth and should be sorry to see it soiled."

"Violence!" cried the Bishop, rising to his feet. "You threaten me with violence? ... Is there no policeman in this parish, Mr. Curphy?"

"There's one at the corner of the road, Bishop," I said. "I brought him along with me. I should have brought the High Bailiff too, if there had been time. You would perhaps be no worse for a few witnesses to the business that seems to be going on here."

Saying this, as I pointed to the papers on the table, I had hit harder than I knew, for both the Bishop and the lawyer (who had also risen) dropped back into their seats and looked at each other with expressions of surprise.

Then, stepping up to the table, so as to face the four of them, I said, as calmly and deliberately as I could:

"Now listen to me. I am leaving this island in about three weeks time, and expect to be two years--perhaps three years--away. Mary O'Neill is going with me--as my wife. She intends to leave her child in the care of my mother, and I intend to promise her that she may set her mind at ease that it shall never under any circumstances be taken away. You seem to have made up your minds that she is going to die. Please God she may disappoint your expectations and come back strong and well. But if she does not, and I have to return alone, and if I find that her child has been removed from the protection in which she left it, do you know what I shall do?"

"Go to the courts, I presume," said the lawyer.

"Oh dear, no! I'll go to no courts, Mr. Curphy. I'll go to the people who have set the courts in motion--which means that I'll go to _you_ and _you_ and _you_ and _you_. Heaven knows how many of us may be living when that day comes; but as surely as I am, if I find that the promise I made to Mary O'Neill has been a vain one, and that her child is under this woman's control and the subject of a lawsuit about this man's money, and she in her grave, as surely as the Lord God is above us there isn't one soul of you here present who will be alive the following morning."

That seemed to be enough for all of them. Even old Daniel O'Neill (the only man in the house who had an ounce of fight in him) dropped his head back in his chair, with his mouth wide open and his broken teeth showing behind his discoloured lips.

I thought Father Dan would have been waiting for me under the trammon on "the street," but he had gone back to the Presbytery and sent Tommy the Mate to lead me through the mist and the by-lanes to the main road.

The old salt seemed to have a "skute" into the bad business which had brought out the Bishop and the lawyer at that late hour, and on parting from me at the gate of Sunny Lodge he said:

"Lord-a-massy me, what for hasn't ould Tom Dug a fortune coming to him?"