"By the living God," she said, "if you injure my child I will have the very blood from your heart." Nevertheless she allowed him to return alone to the house, where she knew that he would find her girl.

"Kate," he said, going into the parlour in which she was sitting idle at the window,--"dear Kate." "Well, sir ?" "I'm off." "You are always--off, as you call it." "Well,--yes.

But I'm not on and off, as the saying is." "Why should you go away now ?" "Do you suppose a soldier has got nothing to do?
You never calculate, I think, that Ennis is about three-and-twenty miles from here.

Come, Kate, be nice with me before I go." "How can I be nice when you are going?
I always think when I see you go that you will never come back to me again.

I don't know why you should come back to such a place as this ?" "Because, as it happens, the place holds what I love best in all the world." Then he lifted her from her chair, and put his arm round her waist.