Four of our leading characters, including our best apology for a hero, have introduced themselves. All that remains to be explained, at least for the present, is that Dulcie Broadhaven, called by courtesy Lady Dulcie, was the youngest daughter of Lord Belmullet, who had married Lord Kilpatrick’s only sister and left her a widow with several children and heavily mortgaged estates in county Mayo; and that Dulcie was just then paying one of her annual visits to her uncle’s castle in Sligo. Here she had struck up a friendship with young Desmond, who had for years been a sort of protÉgÉ of Lord Kilpatrick. Only in the wild west of Ireland are such intimacies common or even possible, but there, where the greater and the smaller gentry still meet on terms of free and easy equality, and where the vices of more civilized society are still unknown, they excite no comment.

Mr. Blake’s abrupt and angry departure from the Castle left anything but comfortable feelings in the breasts of one or two of his late convives. Lord Kilpatrick, an elderly nobleman, whose originally feeble constitution had not been improved by early dissipation, and who was afflicted with a mysterious cardiac disorder, which caused him constant nervous tremors, was in a condition of semi-senile anger over Blake’s violation of the sanctities of his dinner-table. Mr. Feagus, Blake’s bÊte noire, was naturally and excusably enraged by the terms of unmeasured contempt in which the latter had addressed him. He was almost as great a rascal as Blake thought him, but he had a full measure of the commonest of Irish virtues, brute courage; and had it not been for the interference of my lord’s brother, Mr. Conseltine, his son Richard, and old Mr. Peebles, my lord’s butler, valet, general factotum, and tyrant, Blake might have had cause to regret his outrage on his host’s hospitality.

‘The beggarly bankrupt brute!’ he cried. ‘By the blood of the saints, Mr. Conseltine, if ’Twas not for the respect I owe you as my lord’s brother—ye used me ill, sir, in holding me back!’

Conseltine, a dark man of late middle age, with an inscrutable face and a manner of unvarying suavity, poured a bumper of burgundy, and held it out to the angry attorney.

‘Drink that, Mr. Feagus. ’Tis a fine cure for anger. Maybe I’ve not used you so ill as you think. Mr. Peebles,’ he continued, ‘you had better assist my brother to his room. Pray be calm, my dear Henry. The disturbance is over. If you will permit me, I will do myself the pleasure of looking in on you before retiring.’

His lordship, his face twitching, and his hands tremulous with anger, sat back in his chair, and pettishly brushed the old Scotchman’s hand from his shoulder.

‘At my table!’ he ejaculated angrily, for the sixth time.

‘Ay,’ said Peebles, with a broad, dogmatic drawl. ‘Ye should keep better company. Come awa’, my lord, come awa’. Ye’ll get nae good by sitting there glowering at folk.’

‘Hold your tongue, sir!’ snapped the nobleman. ‘How dare you address me in that fashion?’

‘Come awa’, come awa’,’ repeated Peebles gently, as one speaks to a froward child. ‘Ye’ll be doing yourself a mischief.’

The old lord rose tremulously, and left the room on his servant’s arm. Mr. Conseltine stepped rapidly forward to open the door, and shook his brother’s hand as he passed from the room. Then, returning, he addressed Feagus, who was still puffing with anger.

‘Sit down, Mr. Feagus. Fill again, man, and wash the taste of that drunken blackguard out of your mouth. Yes, yes,’ he continued, seeing Feagus about to speak; ‘he’s all that you could call him, but he has to be endured; he knows too much to be crossed.’

‘Knows?’ snorted Feagus; ‘and what does he know, then?’

Conseltine looked warily round before replying, and then, bending across the table till his face was within a foot of Feagus’s, he said in a low voice:

‘He knows all about Moya Macartney.’

‘Moya Macartney!’ echoed his son. ‘And who, pray, is Moya Macartney?’

‘She was a peasant girl, away down in Kenmare. My brother married her—a sham marriage—’Twas Blake that played priest for him, and pretended to be in Holy Orders.’

‘That’s true!’ murmured Feagus. ‘And after—tell him what came of it!’

‘The old story. Henry grew tired of his plaything. One day, when the child—they had a child—was two years old, he told Moya the truth. She went on like a madwoman for a time, and then went quite cold and quiet. Henry thought ’Twas all right, and that she had accepted the situation; but within two hours she disappeared, taking the child with her, and for a month or two nothing was heard of her.’

‘Well?’ said Dick eagerly.

‘Then,’ continued Conseltine, ‘one night—a devilish cold winter’s night it was, too—the boy was brought to my brother with a letter. “Take your child,” the letter said, “and as you use him may God use you! You’ll never hear from me again.” ’Twas signed “Moya Macartney,” and a week later her body was found on the sands of Kenmare Bay.’

‘A good riddance,’ said Feagus. ‘And now, Dick, guess the name of the child!’

Dick looked questioningly at his father, who said quietly:

‘The child is the Squireen, Desmond Macartney.’

Feagus gazed sideways from under his ponderous brows at young Conseltine. The boy’s sullen mask was almost as inscrutable as his father’s smooth face.

‘Does Desmond Macartney guess that he’s my lord’s son?’ asked the youth.

‘No,’ said Conseltine. ‘A story was trumped up that he was the orphan son of people to whom my brother owed obligations. He’s too big a fool to trouble himself asking questions.’

‘Well, then,’ said Feagus, ‘spake out and let me know what ’tis ye fear.’

‘I fear my brother’s weakness. He may leave all to this young vagabond. He’s been conscience-haunted about Moya Macartney’s death ever since it happened, and I know that more than once he has made his will in favour of the Squireen. There’s not a square yard of the estate entailed. He could leave it to a beggar in the street if he liked, and Dick would get nothing but the title. I’m as certain as I can be that he has sent for you to make a will; and with that old rascal Peebles always whispering in his ears, praising the bastard, and running down Dick, there’s danger.’

‘Well?’ asked the lawyer, after a pause.

‘Well?’ Conseltine’s smooth voice echoed him.

There was silence for a full minute, during which Feagus sat looking over his glass from father to son.

‘Plain speech is best, Mr. Conseltine. I’m a friend of the family—a humble friend—and I’d like to see justice. Will ye spake straight, and say what ye’d have done?’

Conseltine smiled with half-shut eyes.

‘I thought you’d understand me,’ he said coolly. ‘I’m sure that the interests of the family are safe in your hands, and you may be sure that the family won’t be ungrateful.’

‘Ye can trust me, sor,’ said Feagus. ‘I’ll take care that justice is done. Ye needn’t fear your brother’s wakeness if I have the drawin’ o’ the will.’

Conseltine nodded again. The worthy trio brought their glasses together with a light chink, and drank.

‘You see now,’ continued Conseltine, ‘why Blake has to be humoured. He’s capable of blowing on us in one of his drunken tantrums, and then the whole story would be ripped up.’ Feagus nodded.

‘Keep out of his way, Mr. Feagus, or, if you meet him, control your temper. That’s all I wanted to say, and I think we understand each other.’

‘Fairly well,’ said Feagus.

‘’Tis a pretty kettle o’ fish I’m stirring,’ he said to himself, when father and son had left him alone; ‘but I’ll be surprised if I don’t keep the biggest trout for my own share. I’ll help Conseltine to get the estates, and then I’ll be on his back like the old man o’ the sea on Sinbad’s. Here’s success to virtue! ‘’tis a fine drink this, and ’tis not often, Jack Feagus, that ye get the chance of drinkin’ real wine out of a live lord’s cellar.’

Lord Kilpatrick had meanwhile been conducted to the drawing-room by the faithful, though outwardly unsympathetic, Peebles. Sitting at the open oriel window in a high-backed antique chair, he drew in the soft evening air with tremulous gulps. His face, which in youth and manhood had been singularly handsome, was drawn with pain and pettish anger, and wore that peculiar gray tinge so often seen in the complexions of people afflicted with diseases of the heart. His long, waxen fingers drummed irritably on the arm-pieces of his chair, so that the rings with which they were decorated cast out coruscations of coloured light.

Peebles, a long, dry Scotchman, who but for his white hair might have been of any age from thirty-five to eighty, long in leg and arm, long in the back, long in the nose and upper-lip, shrewd of eye, dry and deliberate in action, moved soundlessly about the room until summoned by his master’s voice.

‘Peebles!’

‘My lord?’

‘How do I look? No flattery, now. Speak out.’

‘Much flattery ye’ll get frae me, or ever did,’ muttered Peebles, taking his stand before the invalid, and scrutinizing him with a cast-iron countenance of no name-able expression.

‘Well, Peebles, well! How do I look?’

‘My lord,’ said Peebles, after another thirty seconds’ inspection, ‘you look as green as grass and as sick as peasemeal!’

‘Nonsense! Pooh! Rubbish!’ Each word shot out of his lordship’s mouth like a bullet, ‘I never felt better.’

‘Ye never looked worse,’ said Peebles.

‘God bless my soul!’ said his lordship. ‘It must be those damn’d globules that Clarke is giving me. They’re ruining my liver—actually ruining it. Infernal idiots of doctors!’ His fingers moved faster. ‘Go away, Peebles, go away!’

Peebles retired into the background, and stood scraping his lantern jaws with his right hand.

‘Peebles!’ said the old gentleman presently.

‘My lord?’

‘You don’t think——’ Lord Kilpatrick paused, hem’d, and finally shot the question out of himself with a suddenness which showed how strong a repugnance he had to conquer before he could ask it—‘you don’t think I’m going to die?’

‘Ye don’t suppose ye’re immortal, do ye?’ asked the unbending servitor.

‘Of course not! Confound you for an unfeeling blockhead!’ cried his master. ‘Give me your advice—tell me what to do.’

‘I’m to prescribe for ye?’ asked Peebles, looking, as he stood outlined against the oblong of white sky seen through the window, like the silhouette of some curious species of parrot.

‘If you can!’

‘What else have I been doing this last nineteen years,’ asked Peebles, ‘but prescribing the one sure remedy ye winna tak’? My lord, your disease is pride.

Try the black draught of humility and the blue pill of atonement!’

‘What the devil are you talking about?’ asked his lordship, looking angrily at his servant, who returned his gaze quite unmoved.

‘Ye know weel what I’m talkin’ aboot,’ he returned, with no quickening of his usual deliberate drawl. ‘Acknowledge your child, Lord Kilpatrick, and thank God humbly on your knees for such a son to bless your declining years.’

‘By Heaven!’ cried his lordship, sitting up in his chair, ‘you—you—how dare you trifle with me?’ The gray shade deepened on his face, his trembling hands were pressed against his heart. ‘I have done my uttermost. I have provided for the boy. I have looked after his welfare—can a man do more?’

‘Ay, he can! Desmond Macartney is your flesh and blood. Acknowledge him before the world—it’s all the atonement ye can make to the poor lass that’s gone.’

‘She was not my wife!’

‘Ay was she,’ returned Peebles, ‘in the sight o’ God!’

His lordship struggled up in his seat with an oath.

‘That’s enough! You are out of my service, Peebles, from this moment—I discharge you!’

‘I’m agreeable,’ said Peebles, with unmoved calm.

‘And without a character—mind that!’

‘Character, is it?’ said the dour old Scot. ‘If ever I need one, I’ll gang till a God-fearing man, and no’ till your father’s son. Good-afternoon to your lordship.’ Peebles had reached the door when his lordship’s voice arrested him:

‘Stay—stay! I—ha!—I command you!’ ‘Too late!’ said Peebles coolly. ‘I’m no longer at your lordship’s orders—I’m discharged.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Kilpatrick. ‘Why do you provoke me, Peebles? I have been a good master to you—a forbearing master. If we parted I should—I should miss you.’

‘No doot o’ that,’ returned Peebles, smiling. ‘Dismiss me, and ye dismiss your conscience. Dismiss me, and the Deil has ye, tooth and nail.’

His lordship laughed, but with no aspect of enjoyment.

‘You’re an assuming old scoundrel, Peebles. My conscience? Gad!—my conscience, indeed!’

‘Ay, and your conscience says, “Make amends to your own begotten son, the bairn of the puir lass who died for your sake, and who loved ye, Lord Kilpatrick.”’

The old lord’s head sank upon his breast; his eyes were dim with a sudden moisture.

‘I loved her, Peebles—I loved her!’

‘And yet ye played that deil’s trick on her, with the aid o’ yon scoundrel Blake.’

‘How could I marry one so much my inferior?’ asked Kilpatrick tremulously.

‘And yet there are moments when I think that if—if she had not—if she had had a little more patience, I might have done it. There, there,’ he continued, with his usual testiness, ‘let it sleep. Don’t talk about it. As for Desmond, I have brought him up almost like my own son and heir. He has wanted nothing—he shall never want. I shall provide for him in my will.’

‘Grandly, no doot,’ said Peebles, with the abrupt snort which was his laugh, ‘with Mr. Conseltine at your lug, pleading for that smug-faced imp, his son.’

‘Desmond shan’t be forgotten,’ said Kilpatrick. ‘Nothing on earth shall make me forget Desmond.’

‘There’s just a chance,’ said Peebles, after an interval of silence, scraping at his chin—‘there’s just a chance that Desmond, when he kens ye’re his father, will refuse to tak’ a shilling o’ your money. I know the lad, for isn’t he like the child o’ my ain old age—haven’t I watched over him and seen him grow—haven’t I had daily to lie to him, and tell him that he has neither father nor mother, but only a kind friend who knew them both—and haven’t I heard his voice break when he has asked of his dead mother? Man alive!’ he continued, in answer to Kilpatrick’s stricken look, ‘do your duty—acknowledge your son before the world! If anything can get ye a free pass through the gates of heaven, it will be a deed like that!’

‘Gad!’ said Kilpatrick, ‘I’ve a mind to do it, if only to spite my brother Dick. Peebles, do you think I’m a fool? Do you think I don’t know Dick Conseltine? He’s looking forward to my funeral. He wants the estate for young spindleshanks, my nephew. Suppose I showed him a trick worth two of that, eh? Ha, ha!’

His lordship’s rather spiteful chuckle was cut short by a rap at the door.

Peebles opened it, and Mr. Conseltine appeared.

‘My dear Henry,’ he said, advancing solicitously, ‘I trust you are better?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Kilpatrick uneasily; ‘but——’

‘In that case,’ said Conseltine, smoothly interrupting him, ‘may I talk to you privately for a few minutes?’

‘If you desire,’ said his brother. ‘Don’t go, Peebles. Never mind Peebles, Dick He’s my conscience, my—my alter ego—eh, Peebles?’

‘As it is a family matter,’ said Conseltine, ‘I would prefer——’

‘Peebles is one of the family,’ said his lordship; ‘I’ve no secrets from him.’

‘Very good,’ said Conseltine, suffering no shade of annoyance to cloud his smooth face. ‘Mr. Peebles doubtless agrees with me that you exaggerate the gravity of your condition, and that, unless you specially desire it, the drawing up of a new will can be postponed. In the will already placed in my possession you, as is natural, devise the bulk of your estate to your next-of-kin. Do I understand that you desire to alter or modify that arrangement?’

His lordship, nervously interlacing his fingers, glanced at Peebles.

‘Tell your brother the truth, my lord. Tell him ye wish to leave the estates to your own begotten son.’

‘My brother has no son, Mr. Peebles,’ said Conseltine sternly.

‘Ay has he,’ said Peebles—‘Desmond Macartney.’

‘The fruit of a foolish liaison with a peasant. My dear Henry——’

‘Peebles is right, Dick,’ said Kilpatrick. ‘Desmond should be my heir.’

‘My dear Henry!’ said Conseltine, ‘you must surely be mad. Proclaim your folly to the world! Acknowledge a waif and stray as your flesh and blood! It is simply midsummer madness! Thank God, whatever you do with any portion of your personal possessions, you can’t pass your patrimonial title to one born out of wedlock.’

Kilpatrick looked from his brother to Peebles, and back again, interlacing his fingers and dragging them apart.

‘Faith,’ he said, ‘that’s true, that’s true, Peebles. The title must go to my next-of-kin. It must go. There’s no help for it, and the title, with nothing to support it! eh? You must see that, Peebles. Gad, I’m sorry—I’m devilish sorry!’ He rose. ‘Never mind, Peebles, Desmond shan’t be forgotten. Trust me, he shan’t be forgotten.’

Conseltine offered him his arm, and he took it with a glance at his servant.

‘Ay, my lord,’ said Peebles, with an immovable face, ‘lean on your brother. It’s good to have loving kith and kin.’

Voices and laughter were heard from the landing without, and a moment later Dulcie, with Desmond at her heels, entered the room.