The news of the fire had by this time spread, and Rosie and Bobbo were waiting in the passage, eager to know what was happening in the study. They seized upon Murtagh the instant the door was shut, and inquired, but while Frankie answered them Murtagh whispered something to Winnie.

"I'll come, too!" she exclaimed, and they ran away together.

"It will all come out now," said Murtagh, despondingly; "the only thing to be done is just to let him know what's coming."

"Yes," said Winnie, with a sigh, and then they ran in silence till the O'Tooles' cabin came in sight.

"I say, what do you think they'll do to him?" asked Murtagh, stopping to take breath.

"I don't know," replied Winnie; "something dreadful, I expect, because you see the fire spread to the house, and it's burnt, too. I wonder which of the children it is. Supposing it was to die!"

"And it is all our fault!" said Murtagh.

They looked at each other for a moment in silence, then quickening their footsteps they soon stood within the cottage.

Mrs. O'Toole was crouching over the fire, but she started up on their entrance, and they asked at once for Pat.

"What is it ye want with Pat?" she inquired.

"We want to talk to him about something," replied Murtagh.

"Sure ye can leave your message with me. Is it about them night-lines he was settlin' for yez?"

"No, no," returned Murtagh, impatiently; "I must see himself. Is he inside?"

"Sit down, yer honor, and have a bit of griddle-cake," said Mrs. O'Toole, wiping a stool with her apron; "maybe he'd be in in a minnit. It's the whitest flour I've had this long time."

"No, thanks," replied Murtagh, "we can't wait; we must go and try to find him."

They went, accordingly, to the village, where he was generally to be found lolling on the grass by the roadside, minding the goat and playing marbles. They searched a long time, but they could not find him, and one of his playmates at last volunteered the information that Pat had not been out this morning. Mrs. O'Toole had been down herself to milk the goat, and she told them that Pat was ill in bed.

"Ill in bed!" exclaimed Murtagh. "Then, perhaps—Oh, Winnie; we'd better go back."

"Mrs. O'Toole!" he exclaimed, as they once more entered the cottage, "what made you tell us Pat was out when he's ill in bed?"

"Sure, Mr. Murtagh, honey, I never said he was out; Heaven forbid! I only said maybe he'd be in in a minnit."

Murtagh crossed over without ceremony to the door of the little inner room. But Mrs. O'Toole started up and threw herself between him and it, exclaiming:

"Ye can't go in there, Mr. Murtagh! The place is not cleaned up at all. It's not fit for a gentleman like ye!"

"I tell you I must speak to Pat!" persisted Murtagh, with his hand on the latch.

"But ye mustn't, Mr. Murtagh, dear!" cried Mrs. O'Toole, her voice growing strangely eager and imploring. "I tell ye ye mustn't, he's down with the small-pox!"

"As if I cared twopence for the small-pox," replied Murtagh, impetuously bursting open the door as he spoke, and springing towards the press bed where Pat generally slept.

But the room was empty! and the bed had not been slept in that night.

The poor woman, seeing that no concealment was possible, had thrown her apron over her head and was rocking herself backwards and forwards in an agony of tears.

Tears came to Winnie's eyes, too, as she stood and looked at her. There was no need to ask any question; but after a minute Murtagh said, half-reproachfully, "You needn't have told any lies to me, Mrs. O'Toole."

"Oh, Mr. Murtagh, asthore, don't betray us!" was her only answer. "It's my only son; the only one ever I had!"

"Where is he?" asked Murtagh, in a choked voice.

"He's gone away!" replied Mrs. O'Toole, drawing a bit of paper from her breast. "Oh, Pat, my darlint, whatever made you do it?"

Murtagh took the bit of paper in silence, and Winnie looking over his shoulder read: "Mother, I've done it, and I'm gone away for ever! Good-by; God bless ye!"

"For ever! an' he was the only one I had," repeated the poor woman. "They say he bate the boy last night. He's been a blight upon the country since the day he first set foot in it; but I pray it may come back upon his own head."

"Oh, don't," said Murtagh; "it was all us. Do you know one of Mr. Plunkett's children was hurt in the fire, too?"

"Know, ay, I know," she replied fiercely. "It's his eldest, too; the one they say he do care for; I've been prayin' ever since it may die, an' let him feel what it is to be robbed o' your child."

"Listen," said Murtagh, in the greatest distress. "Let us think what we are to do. He's going to be sent for in a minute to be examined. That's what we came down to tell him."

"Is it discovered already he is?" she cried, full of a new fear. "Oh, if they catch him and bring him back to prison! Mr. Murtagh, ye won't betray us; Miss Winnie, asthore? Ye're only children, but ye won't say a word?"

"You needn't be afraid," cried Winnie and Murtagh together. "They won't get a word out of us."

"But," continued Murtagh, "how will you manage?"

"God bless yez, God bless yez," she answered warmly. And then in a different tone: "Let me alone for bamboozling the polis if they come here after him. All he'll want will be a couple of hours. If he gets till this evening, never a man o' the polis will lay a hand on him."

The words were scarcely out of her mouth when a shaking of the rickety garden gate told that some one was coming. The next instant Mr. Plunkett himself stood upon the threshold.

The children glanced in despair round the room. But as if by magic, the bedroom door was shut, Mrs. O'Toole's cap put straight, and she was bending over the fire stirring something in a saucepan. The children alone were confused; Mrs. O'Toole said calmly:

"I tell you, Mr. Murtagh, honey, he went out early to the bog with his father to cut peat, an' the father said maybe they'd be in to dinner and maybe they wouldn't."

"Are you speaking of your son?" inquired Mr. Plunkett, looking with suspicion at Murtagh and Winnie.

Mrs. O'Toole turned round in well-feigned astonishment at the new voice. She dropped a respectful courtesy as she answered:

"I am, yer honor."

She had been off her guard when the children came; but now Pat was out with his father sure enough, and she had such a bad recollection for names, she could not rightly call to mind whether it was out Ballybrae way he was, or up past Armaghbaeg, or maybe it wasn't there at all but up over the hills. But anyway he'd very likely be in to dinner, so it wouldn't be worth sending for him yet awhile, till they saw whether he'd be coming.

Mr. Plunkett never for a moment supposed Pat guilty, but placed ready faith in Mrs. O'Toole's apparent nonchalance. At the same time, however, he considered it his duty to take Pat to Mr. Blair without delay; so he said the boy must be sent for at once.

Mrs. O'Toole was quite equal to the emergency. "There were plenty of idle gossoons in the village," she said, "who would be glad of a run;" and two or three lads were sent in different directions with orders from Mr. Plunkett to bring Pat home directly.

They received private instruction from Mrs. O'Toole to wink both eyes if they saw Pat, and if they met O'Toole to tell him to keep himself out of the way; and it is needless to say whose orders they obeyed. Murtagh added that they might take as long as they liked to look for him; and before the afternoon the whole village knew that some mystery was on foot. It was the general opinion that Murtagh and Pat had between them burnt down the contents of Mr. Plunkett's hay-barn, and that anyhow no one was to know a word about Pat O'Toole. Sympathy was all on the boys' side. And though in the course of the morning several of the villagers were examined by Mr. Plunkett, nothing could be drawn from them.

At Murtagh's suggestion Winnie went, after a time, to try and get Nessa by herself to warn her against betraying Pat. But first Nessa was in the study with Mr. Blair, and then just as Winnie was going to catch her in the passage, Cousin Jane came to the drawing-room door with a face full of dismay and beckoned. Winnie caught the words, "doctor," "terrible," "send at once." Nessa's face became very grave; then the door shut upon them both, and the child was left outside full of wondering trouble.

At last Nessa came out of the house and began to walk across the park. The children hailed her appearance with relief; at least they were not afraid of her; and running up to her they asked what was the matter; was Frankie ill?

"Frankie is ill," replied Nessa; "Cousin Jane says excitement always makes him ill. But we have sent for the doctor for Mr. Plunkett's child; they say she is dying. That pretty golden-haired little girl—the eldest of them." Nessa's voice was trembling; she remembered so well the transparent beauty of the child, and the loving looks of both father and mother. "It seems a piece of wood fell upon her head when they were taking her out of the burning nursery," she continued.

"First she fainted, then she seemed quite, quite well, and now the servant who came to find Mr. Plunkett says she is dying."

A sudden awe fell upon the children. "Dying!" They could scarcely believe it. No one had ever died in their experience.

"Oh, Nessa!" exclaimed Rosie, but the others were all silent.

"Will you come with me?" said Nessa, looking at their white shocked faces. "You need not come into the house, but you will know. And perhaps you may be of use if there are messages."

At a short distance from the Red House they were overtaken by Mr. Plunkett, who with an anxious face was walking up swiftly from the village.

"David himself has gone for the doctor," said Nessa, "and if he does not find yours, he will ride on at once to Ballyboden; he will not come back without one." Her voice conveyed all the sympathy that she felt. It was not a moment to put it into words.

But evidently Mr. Plunkett did not yet know of his child's danger.

"What?" he said hoarsely, trying to seem unmoved.

"You have not heard—that she is rather worse?" asked Nessa, steadying her voice in order to break the news as gently as possible.

But Mr. Plunkett was not a man to have news broken to him. A sort of gray color spread over his face. Standing quite still before Nessa he seemed to pierce her through with his eyes.

"Is she dying?" he asked. He stood erect as usual. He tried to keep his face in the same unrelaxed mold. For all his pain he could not bear that these strangers should see him suffer. But the cold, stern voice was strangely broken; in spite of himself such a dumb agony of suspense was in his eyes that Nessa, not daring to speak untruly, was moved with sudden sympathy to put her hand in his. The touch of her fingers, the sorrow in her face, conveyed the answer she could not have framed in words.

"Not dead?" he forced his lips to say, while almost unconsciously his hand closed tightly upon hers.

"No; oh, no," she answered quickly, "and the doctor will soon be here, perhaps—"

But he waited for no more. With a few rapid strides he was in the house, and Nessa, not liking just then to enter, remained with the children where he had left her.

A sudden sound of one of the little Plunketts crying helped her to collect her thoughts. Telling the children to wait, she went quietly through the blackened doorway, and found, as she had expected, the three Plunkett babies alone. Their nursery had been burnt, and they were drearily trying to play in an empty kitchen. They were so hungry, the eldest said, and nobody came with their dinner.

After a few words with the nurse, who passed up the stairs and gave her some details of Marion's condition, Nessa took the children out, and told Rosie and Winnie to take them home with them. Then she told the boys they must get some ice. "I am sure when the doctor comes he will order ice for her head," she said, "and it will be good to have it here."

Humbly thankful they were to have something to do. Murtagh was too miserable now for words, for he had had time to remember that this also was his fault. They found out from Donnie where they were to go for the ice, and then they went to the barn-yard to get the horse and cart.

The way was long; and it was getting late in the afternoon when the boys returned to the Red House with the ice. They had had no dinner, but they cared little for that, and only asked with anxious faces if there was nothing else they could do. Nessa understood, and set them to work at once in the garden to pound the ice as nearly as possible into powder.

It was greatly wanted. The doctor had not yet arrived, and during the afternoon little Marion became worse and worse. Mrs. Plunkett was able to do nothing, but stood at the bottom of the bed and wept, while Mr. Plunkett sat with a face of unnatural calm, and tried to soothe the poor child's ravings with tender words. At last Nessa had gone up and had succeeded in quieting her a little by laying wet cloths upon her head. So now with new hope they were waiting for the ice.

Long after it grew dark, though the wind was bitterly cold, the two boys still sat in the garden pounding the ice, and Nessa came backwards and forwards from the house to fetch a bowlful of it as it was wanted, comforting their hearts with an account of how little Marion grew quieter and quieter as each clothful of the cold powder was laid upon her head.

They could not go into the house, for the sound of the pounding would have echoed through all the rooms; but they worked on, never thinking of the cold or the darkness. They felt able to do anything now they had a spark of hope.

After a time Winnie joined them with Royal. Mrs. Donegan had put the little Plunketts to bed at the house, she said, and she didn't know where Murtagh was or what he was doing, so she had come out to look for him. She seemed very disconsolate, but the boys were cheered now with their work and the better accounts of Marion; so they told what they were doing, and Bobbo groped about till he found a big stone for her to pound with too. Then she knelt down beside them and worked away, while Royal, with some wonderful instinct of their trouble, stretched himself out upon the ground and lay patiently watching the three children.

So the evening wore away, till at last the rumble of wheels announced that the doctor was coming. Royal was the first to hear the welcome sound, and a low growl from him announced it to the children.

"Now we shall know," said Murtagh; and with eager expectation they watched the doctor walk up the path. Winnie ran to the door and begged Nessa to let them know quickly what he said, but it seemed to them a long, long time before any one came.

They could see three dark shadows sometimes on the blind of the room where Marion lay, and though they tried to go on with their work, the ice often numbed their fingers as they absently held a lump in their hands and gazed up for some sign of Nessa coming. After one of those long looks Murtagh had just begun pounding again, when suddenly the door opened, and the doctor's voice called cheerily from the blaze of light that streamed out over the steps: "Where are you, my young workers? Your ice has saved her life."

Till those words lifted the load off their hearts, the children scarcely knew how heavy it had been.

"She won't die?" said Murtagh, eagerly springing to the bottom of the steps.

"No, no," replied the doctor; "not now, if she has the same nursing through the night."

Then Nessa appeared behind the doctor, and joined her assurance to his.

She was to stay and spend the night with Marion, but the doctor insisted on driving the children home in his gig. He was a tender-hearted man, who had a lot of merry little brothers and sisters at home, and the idea of children being so troubled as these was to him unnatural. It would have disturbed him to think of them after he got home, so as they drove along he made light of Marion's danger, and talked and laughed with them, till by the time they reached the house they were in quite a bright mood.

After the doctor left them they stopped on the steps to bid Royal good night, and kneeling down beside him, Winnie said:

"We've been very miserable to-day, Royal—very miserable; but it is wonderful how things always come right after. They always do, Royal; so if ever you're miserable, you can remember that."

Royal looked solemnly at her as though he understood every word, but as she finished he put a paw upon each of her shoulders, and by way of answer gravely licked her face.

Bobbo burst out laughing, and the others followed his example.

"Oh, Royal dear, you are a darling!" cried Winnie. And Cousin Jane, passing through the hall to bed, overheard them, and remarked to Emma that she never would have believed children could be so heartless as to be laughing and playing with the dog, when that poor little girl might be lying dead through their wickedness.