The shock, however, occasioned by the discharge of the gun, and the noise of the conflict, acting upon a frame so feeble were more than he could bear.

Be this as it may, the constables were not many minutes gone, when, to their surprise, he staggered back again out of his little room, where Father Roche had placed him, and tottering across the floor, slipped in the deceased man's blood, and fell.

The mother flew to him, but Harman had already raised him up; when on his feet, he looked at the blood and shuddered--a still more deadly paleness settled on his face--his breath came short, and his lips got dry and parched--he could not speak nor stand, had not Harman supported him.

He looked again at the blood with horror, and then at his mother, whilst he shrank up, as it were, into himself, and shivered from head to foot.
"Darling of my heart," she exclaimed, "I understand you.

Bryan, our treasure, be a man for the sake of your poor heart-broken mother--I will, I will, my darling life, I will wipe it off of you, every stain of it--why should such blood and my innocent son come together ?" She now got a cloth, and in a few moments left not a trace of it upon him.