Mr. O'Donnell got home that evening in remarkably good-humour.
Lavirotte had explained to him that his own hope of coming into this
money had been absolutely nothing until the visit from the man who was
working with him. So that here were two men who knew all about a
certain chance, believing thoroughly in it. Why should not he, a
third, who knew absolutely nothing about the matter, accept their
judgment?
What a splendid thing it would be if, after all, the firm which he had
created did succeed in weathering the storm!
He had said nothing to his wife about the matter on his way to the
station, in the train to Glengowra, or from the Glengowra station to
his own home. He thought he would preserve the good news--by this time
it had taken the substantial form of news in his mind--until they were
quietly seated in his little library, where many of the projects
leading to his fortune had been devised.
When at last he reached that haven, he found the writing-table
littered with the ledgers he had left upon it, and between the leaves
of one of these ledgers was the completed rough balance-sheet he had
made out.
Mrs. O'Donnell was astonished to find her husband in such good-humour.
She could in no way understand it, for he had not even seen their boy
or noticed the progress towards recovery he was making.
"The run has done you good, James," she said. "I told you it would.
Why, it has been as much to you as good news."
"I should think it has," he said; "in fact, Mary, I have heard the
very best news while I was in Glengowra. I have every reason to hope
we may be able to save the business, anyway."
"Thank God!" cried the woman devoutly. There was a tone of incredulity
in her voice. It was not easy to imagine that, after all the hideous
certainties of ruin they had been facing for days, there was any
prospect these certainties would melt away before doubts that might be
shaped into hopes.
They were now both seated in their accustomed easy-chairs. The old man
caught the arms of his firmly, as though he now saw no reason why it
should come under the hammer and pass away for ever from him.
"Yes," he said; and then he told her all that had passed between him
and Lavirotte, enjoining her to strict secrecy.
Then the wife lifted up her voice in praise of Lavirotte, and
thanksgiving for their great deliverance, and bargained with her
husband for one thing--namely, that she should be allowed to tell the
good news to Nellie. "For," said the mother, "she heard the bad news,
and bore it like a true-hearted woman! Of course if she was only to
think of him, she must have been very sorry to hear it, but when we
remember it affected herself too, it must have been harder still to
bear. Eugene never heard the bad news. It is only now fair she should
hear what Lavirotte promises."
It was there and then settled that the hopes aroused that evening
should be made known to Ellen Creagh.
Next day Mrs. O'Donnell found herself under no necessity of keeping
close to her husband, for he was not only not depressed and hopeless,
but active, cheerful, and full of projects for the future. So she went
early to Glengowra, and, having taken the girl aside, told her all.
Nellie clasped her hands in mute stupefaction, and when she did speak
at last, could say only: "Mr. Lavirotte! Mr. Lavirotte! Has he really
promised to do this, and do you think the thing is in his power? I
never felt more bewildered in all my life."
Yes, it was enough to make one think one was dreaming. This Lavirotte
had asked her to marry him. He had said her refusal would ruin him.
O'Donnell had asked her to marry him, and she had consented. Then this
Lavirotte had sought O'Donnell's life. In the struggle both had been
badly hurt. O'Donnell had forgiven Lavirotte. Upon this came the
absolute ruin of O'Donnell's father, and the consequent ruin of his
son also. By this commercial catastrophe the possibility of his
marrying her was indefinitely postponed, and at the very moment when
it might be supposed a man in Lavirotte's position, and of his
excitable temperament, would nourish hope anew of succeeding where he
had failed before with her, he offered to rescue the father from ruin,
and reinstate the whole family in affluence!
"It is incredible," she said, after a long pause. "I cannot believe it
possible."
"But it is true," said Eugene's mother. "Believe me, my dear, it is
true. My husband, after all his years and years in business, is not
likely to make a mistake or be misled in such matters."
"It may be true," said the girl, "but I cannot believe it."
All things were now going on well with everybody. The old merchant was
no longer in dread of bankruptcy. Lionel Crawford had got an
additional hold on Lavirotte. The two wounded men were progressing
rapidly towards perfect health. Lavirotte had forsworn his fickleness,
and declared himself devoted to Dora. The two men who had met in a
struggle for life had shaken hands by proxy, and sworn friendship
anew; and Nellie and Dora passed the happy days in the full assurance
of the devotion of their lovers, and the speedy approach of their
marriages.
The time went quickly by. Dr. O'Malley called regularly at the hotel,
and regularly reported favourably of the patients. Now Lavirotte wrote
a few lines every day to Dora, and she every day a long letter to him.
And every day came Nellie to sit a while with Eugene, and hear his
voice, and go away with strengthening consciousness that daily he grew
more like his own self. Once more Lionel Crawford was happy at his old
work, excavating at the base of the old tower with increased vigour,
and getting rid of the fruits of his toil with greater despatch.
Nothing, indeed, but good seemed to have come of that dark night's
work. It is true that the police were still a little bitter over their
disappointment, and that the townsfolk observed a more reserved
attitude towards those connected with that affair. But if those
chiefly concerned in the matter were content, the police and the
people might be dismal and disagreeable if they pleased.
In the town of Rathclare, besides Mr. and Mrs. O'Donnell, there was
another person greatly pleased with the turn things had taken. This
was Mr. John Cassidy, a gentleman of slight build, pale, small,
impertinent, pretty face, the nose of which turned up slightly. He had
an exquisitely fair moustache, an exquisitely fair imperial, and the
most exquisitely made clothes a man on a hundred pounds a year could
afford to wear in a provincial town in Ireland.
He had what he believed to be a very pretty English accent, although
he never had been out of Ireland. He wore a delicate yellow
watch-chain purely as an ornament, for its use had no existence. He
wore an eye-glass for ornament also. He had never been seen to smoke a
pipe, and never much more than the tenth part of a cigar at a time. He
was always scrupulously neat and consciously pretty, and spoke of the
whole female sex as "poor things," as though it grieved him to the
soul he could not make every woman alive absolutely happy by marrying
her. He really wasn't a scamp, and had no offensive accomplishments or
acquirements.
He had a ravenous curiosity, particularly in love affairs. How it came
to be that a man who devoted so much of his time to the courtship of
others, should have himself the time to break and cast away all female
hearts he encountered, no one could tell. It was the great prerogative
of his genius to be able to do so.
The chief source of his present amiable condition of mind was that he
found himself about to start in a few days for London, and that, by
way of an introduction to that vast place, he carried with him the
clue to a mysterious love affair in which he was not a principal, and
which he had sworn to follow up.
He had sworn to his friend of the Post Office that he would discover
what girl Lavirotte was sweet on in London before he had made love to
Nellie Creagh, and his efforts in such a case hitherto had seldom
failed. He had no heart and no tact, but instead of these a wonderful
power of going straight at the mark, and in a case of this kind
demanding of a woman point-blank: "Is it a fact that Mr. Lavirotte,
while engaged to you, asked Miss Creagh to marry him? I'm interested
in all subjects of this kind."
Mr. John Cassidy had up to this been employed in the head office of
the railway at Rathclare, and was now about to separate himself from
his dear friend, a clerk in the Post Office, and go to London, where
something better had offered, and where he should have, he hoped, for
the sake of womankind, a larger female audience to hearken to his
attractions, and where, moreover, he should have a very handsome
mystery of his own particular pattern to solve.