moonlight, where she’d wait agin, gathering courage. At last she came to a strip of soft light before the tomb she knew. Her strength failed her there, and she went down on her knees.
Out of the darkness before her a low, pleading woice called, “Norah! Norah! Don’t be frightened, acushla machree!”
Slowly, slowly, with its arm spread, the dim shape of a man glided out of the shadows. At the same instant the girl rose and gave one cry, as she flung herself on his breast. They could see him bending over her, thin, pouring words like rain into her ears, but what he said they couldn’t hear—Darby thinks he whuspered.
“I wondher, oh, I wondher what he’s telling her in this last hour!” says Maureen.
“It’s aisy to know that,” says Darby; “what should he be telling her but where the crocks of goold are hid.”
“Don’t be watching them, it ain’t dacint,” says the King; “uncultayvation or unpoliteness is ojus; come over here; I’ve a pack of cayrds, Darby,” says he, “and as we have nearly an hour to wait, I challenge you to a game of forty-five.”
