"If it's a satisfaction to you to know, I will tell you: her love
for you is as strong, and stronger, than death itself; and it is the
suffering of what is worse than death, Willy Reilly, that will unite you
both at last."

Reilly started, and after a pause, in which he took it for granted that
Mary spoke merely from one of those shrewd conjectures which practised
impostors are so frequently in the habit of hazarding, replied, "That
won't do, Mary; you have told me nothing yet that has happened within
the last forty-eight hours. I deny the truth of what you say."

"It won't be long so, then, Mr. Reilly; you saved the life of the old
half-mad squire of Corbo. Yes, you saved his life, and you have taken
his daughter's! for indeed it would be better for her to die at wanst
than to suffer what will happen to you and her."

"Why, what is to happen?"

"You'll know it too soon," she replied, "and there's no use in making
you unhappy. Good-by, Mr. Reilly; if you take a friend's advice you'll
give her up; think no more of her. It may cost you an aching heart to
do so, but by doin' it you may save her from a great deal of sorrow, and
both of you from a long and heavy term of suffering."

Reilly, though a young man of strong reason in the ordinary affairs of
life, and of a highly cultivated intellect besides, yet felt himself
influenced by the gloomy forebodings of this notorious woman. It is true
he saw, by the force of his own sagacity, that she had uttered nothing
which any person acquainted with the relative position of himself and