"I'm sure I don't know," replied Mrs. Crook; "he's done nothing but wander about the house all day, and whine so piteous-like every time he went into the poor old gentleman's room!"
"Faith, I thought he'd have ate up the undertaker's min whin they kem into the room. Ah, God help us, is it any wondher me sweet young lady's heart is broke, whin the dumb baste itself knows what we have lost; where is he now?"
"I don't know, I'm sure; I've not seen him these two hours."
Mrs. O'Toole went in search of him to what had been the Colonel's bed-room; and there, stretched by the bed he had so long watched, lay the old hound, his limbs quivering in the agonies of death.
The noble dog strove to raise his head in answer to her voice, but it fell back, and he was dead.
"Och, Cormac! me poor Cormac!" cried Mrs. O'Toole, her scarce dried tears flowing afresh; "but you wur the thrue hearted dog! Sure, there was somethin' inside iv ye far betther than many a man's heart. Och, how'll I iver tell Miss Kate that ye couldn't stop afther yer ould masther was gone?"
But Lady Desmond wisely determined that Kate should not hear of Cormac's death until she made enquiries for him; and Kate lay in perfect quiet for several days, rarely speaking, and never alluding to the sad scenes she had so lately gone through, though often the large tears would pour unconsciously down her cheeks, and when, at last, the intelligence of poor Cormac's death was communicated to her, she received it with a burst of grief, seemingly disproportioned to the occasion. All her sorrow was revived by the death of this faithful follower, so closely associated in her mind, not only with her lamented grandfather, but with her own earliest and happiest days.
One morning, as Lady Desmond and nurse were standing in silent concern, by her bed-side, noticing sadly the deep traces of grief on her young face, she suddenly roused herself from the species of lethargy into which she had fallen, and stretching out her hand to Lady Desmond, said--
"Forgive me, Georgina, forgive me, nurse, I am very selfish and wrong to lie here so indolently; I will endeavour to do better, to be resigned. I will get up and go out in the carriage with you, Georgy, if you wish."