The Motor Maids by Rose, Shamrock and Thistle Part 32

He drew out the letter and read the following message, written in the shaky, uncertain hand of one almost too weak to grasp a pen:

"I do not reproach you for myself because I am leaving you forever. But I warn you that if you are not kind to my little boy, you shall not keep him.

"_Maddelina_."

At the bottom she had added:

"Why do you wish to be hated and feared? Does it make you any happier?"

He read the note over and over so many times that it seemed to be written in letters of fire on his brain. Then he stood the picture against the inkstand and looked at it with a strange, frightened expression.

"Am I that kind of a man?" he said out loud. "Hated and feared?"

"Of course," the picture seemed to answer. "There is not one human being who loves you, not even your son, Max, who is much fonder of your half-brother than of you; not a servant; nor a dependent nor an equal.

No one. You are alone in the world, a cold, cruel, pitiless man, despised and distrusted."

"It's true," he answered. "Great heavens, Maddelina, it's true! And what have I gained by it? Nothing. People have always been so afraid of me that if I had tried to be kind to them, they wouldn't have understood. I know Max is afraid of me, and Arthur is probably happier wherever he is.

'I shall not keep him.' What did she mean? Is he dead? No, no, Maddelina, not that," he cried, starting violently.

"How often do you see him?" demanded the accusing inner voice. "Not half a dozen times a year."

The Duke of Kilkenty crouched down in his chair.

"I have been so busy," he muttered.

"Adding to your millions? Crushing and grinding the poor? Finding flaws in old t.i.tles and driving people from their homes: cheating and defrauding and overreaching--"

"It's true, it's true," he groaned. "Maddelina, I confess. And all I have gained from it is unspeakable loneliness."

Resting his chin on his hand he sat and stared at the picture; as the hours dragged slowly by, all the years of his past life pa.s.sed before him and he saw himself as he really was.

"Oh, Maddelina, is it too late?" he cried brokenly.

"No, no," answered the voice of Maddelina, speaking from his own heart, "it is not too late, but you must begin at once. To-morrow you can be as much a power for good as you have been for evil. Where people have hated you, they will love you, and where they have cursed you, they will bless you."

Just as dawn was breaking, he went back to his bedroom, taking with him Maddelina's picture and her note. He had the bewildered feeling of one who has been walking against the wind and has suddenly turned and faced the other way.

He lay down and slept for some hours and at seven waked with a start.

"Did I dream it?" he asked out loud.

But there was the picture looking at him from the mantel shelf.

He went over and sat down at his writing table near the window. Through the open cas.e.m.e.nt floated the sounds of a summer morning; the chorus of birds; the tinkle of a cowbell in some distant meadow, and the hum of the busy insects. Almost for the first time since his boyhood he noticed with pleasure the green freshness of the outer world. Through the trees he caught a glimpse of gently undulating country, a pleasing vista of wooded hills and dales.

"Am I not beautiful?" it seemed to say, "and how have you neglected me!"

Seizing a pencil he began to write a list. The first item was:

"New model houses for tenants in place of old stone huts.

"New school house--" he paused and frowned. "Why not?" he said presently, and wrote.

"Repairs to church.

"New parish house for Father O'Toole."

When the list was completed it covered two pages, and the last item was "The O'Connors."

CHAPTER XXI.-THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY.

Through a street in the town of Killarney flashed a red motor car, slowly, because the way was paved with rough cobbles, and there were countless chickens and ducks on the highway, and barefooted children playing at the doors of the thatched-roof cottages.

"Wilhelmina, my dear, you must turn into a better street," groaned Miss Campbell. "One might as well ride in a 'jolting car' and be done with it."

"You mean a 'jaunting car,' Cousin," exclaimed Billie, obediently turning the motor into a broad, shady avenue. "I only wanted to give you a glimpse into an Irish byway," she added by way of apology.

"I don't care to take it in that unnerving fashion," answered Miss Campbell. "Besides, you will ruin Maria's voice and make it turn tremolo."

"I'm not afraid," laughed Maria Cortinas, sitting on the back seat between Miss Campbell and Elinor Butler. "I'm off on a holiday to enjoy the sights and I shall not remember that I have a voice for several weeks."

At last they took a road which led to that enchantingly beautiful and historic region, in which lie three exquisite little lakes like three gems in an emerald setting. For some time the way lay between the walls of a great estate, but finally it emerged from those confines and crept down close to the waters. Ranges of mist-clad mountains overhang the chain of lakes, broken at intervals by fairy glens shut in by tall green cliffs. Numbers of little wooded islands dot the waters and everywhere are ancient ruins and the thatched-roof huts of the Irish peasant.

"I wish poor Feargus were with us now," Miss Campbell remarked regretfully. She had always felt a great tenderness for the Irish boy.

"He would have been a splendid guide around the lakes; he told me he knew them well."

"Poor Feargus," echoed the others, wondering for the hundredth time what had been the reason for his sudden departure from Edinburgh.

"Do you know that one man owns the town of Killarney and most of the region about the lakes?" announced Mary reading from the guide book.

"Is he as rich as the Duke of Kilkenty?" asked Billie.

"Don't talk about disagreeable subjects in such a beautiful spot," put in Nancy.

Billie laughed.

"I believe you blame everything on the Duke of Kilkenty, Nancy. He's a sort of evil genius who brings all the bad weather, and I haven't a doubt he had the Blarney stone put up at the top of Blarney Castle with iron spikes in front of it to keep you from kissing it--"

"I would never have permitted her to lean across that awful place and kiss the stone, even if it hadn't been railed off," broke in Miss Campbell. "But I am thankful it was," she added, remembering Nancy's reckless spirit.

"Your Irish tongue is quite glib enough as it is, Miss," observed Elinor.