FullReads

“Let me pass, Mr. Legge, I had intended never speaking to you again after the way you went on about Mr. Langan today; and I wouldn’t either, only my uncle made me promise not to take any notice of you, because you were–no matter; but I won’t listen to you any more on the subject.”

“Don’t go. I swear never to mention his name again. I beg your pardon for what I said: you shall have no further cause for complaint. Will you forgive me?”

She sat down evidently disappointed by my submission. I took a chair, and placed myself near her. She tapped the floor impatiently with her foot. I saw that there was not a movement that I could make, not a look, not a tone of voice, which did not irritate her.

“You were remarking,” I said, “that your uncle desired you take no notice of me because—-“

She closed her lips and did not answer.

“I fear that I have offended you again by my curiosity. But indeed, I had no idea that he had forbidden you to tell me the reason.”

“He did not forbid me. Since you are so determined to find out—-“

“No; excuse me. I do not wish to know, I am sorry I asked.”

“Indeed! Perhaps you would be sorrier if you were told I only made a secret of it out of consideration for you.”

“Then your uncle has spoken ill of me behind my back. If that be so there is no such thing as a true man in Ireland, I would not have believed it on the word of any woman alive save yourself.”

“I never said my uncle was a backbiter. Just to shew you what he thinks of you, I will tell you, whether you want to know or not, that he bid me not mind you because you were only a poor mad creature, sent down here by your family to be out of harm’s way.”

“Oh, Miss Hickey!”

“There now! you have got it out of me; and I wish I had bit my tongue out first. I sometimes think–that I mayn’t sin!–that you have a bad angel in you.”

“I am glad you told me this,” I said gently. “Do not reproach yourself for having done so, I beg. Your uncle has been misled by what he has heard of my family, who are all more or less insane. Far from being mad, I am actually the only rational man named Legge in the three kingdoms. I will prove this to you, and at the same time keep your indiscretion in countenance, by telling you something I ought not to tell you. It is this. I am not here as an invalid or a chance tourist. I am here to investigate the miracle. The Cardinal, a shrewd and somewhat erratic man, selected mine from all the long heads at his disposal to come down here, and find out the truth of Father Hickey’s story. Would he have entrusted such a task to a madman, think you?”

“The truth of–who dared to doubt my uncle’s word? And so you are a spy, a dirty informer.”

I started. The adjective she had used, though probably the commonest expression of contempt in Ireland, is revolting to an Englishman.

“Miss Hickey,” I said: “there is in me, as you have said, a bad angel. Do not shock my good angel–who is a person of taste–quite away from my heart, lest the other be left undisputed monarch of it. Hark! The chapel bell is ringing the angelus. Can you, with that sound softening the darkness of the village night, cherish a feeling of spite against one who admires you?”

“You come between me and my prayers” she said hysterically, and began to sob. She had scarcely done so when I heard voices without. Then Langan and the priest entered.

“Oh, Phil,” she cried, running to him, “take me away from him: I cant bear—-” I turned towards him, and shewed him my dog-tooth in a false smile. He felled me at one stroke, as he might have felled a poplar-tree.