Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/347

Rh With a great sob she turned, and held him as if he might slip away into a dream.

"Malachy! oh, Malachy!"

"I have waited a year," he said, "since I brought you home. You did not know me then, Nora, when I took you from among their feet. Ah, my love, it was hard to watch others nurse you and see you slowly coming back from your fever and madness; but I knew it was right and best not to let you know till now."

The woman drew herself back from him with an awful cry.

"O God! I had forgotten, and only remembered the agony of having lost you. Malachy, Malachy, we are outcasts from the happiness of God. Our ways are separate; we must not meet again."

He took her by the two hands and looked into her eyes. He thought the fever that had burnt in her poor brain was returning.

"What do you mean?" he said tenderly. "We shall never part again."

She drew her hands from his and stood before him like one turned into stone.

"The mark of Cain is upon you and upon me," she said. 2em