CHAPTER VII.
THE FLIGHT FROM GURT-NA-MORRA.
It was by one of those sudden and inexplicable revulsions which occasionally restore to sense and intellect the maniac of years standing, that I was no sooner left alone in my chamber than I became perfectly sober.

The fumes of the wine--and I had drunk deeply--were dissipated at once; my head, which but a moment before was half wild with excitement, was now cool, calm, and collected; and stranger than all, I, who had only an hour since entered the dining-room with all the unsuspecting freshness of boyhood, became, by a mighty bound, a man,--a man in all my feelings of responsibility, a man who, repelling an insult by an outrage, had resolved to stake his life upon the chance.

In an instant a new era in life had opened before me; the light-headed gayety which fearlessness and youth impart was replaced by one absorbing thought,--one all-engrossing, all-pervading impression, that if I did not follow up my quarrel with Bodkin, I was dishonored and disgraced, my little knowledge of such matters not being sufficient to assure me that I was now the aggressor, and that any further steps in the affair should come from his side.
So thoroughly did my own griefs occupy me, that I had no thought for the disappointment my poor uncle was destined to meet with in hearing that the Blake interest was lost to him, and the former breach between the families irreparably widened by the events of the evening.

Escape was my first thought; but how to accomplish it?
The door, a solid one of Irish oak, doubly locked and bolted, defied all my efforts to break it open; the window was at least five-and-twenty feet from the ground, and not a tree near to swing into.

I shouted, I called aloud, I opened the sash, and tried if any one outside were within hearing; but in vain.