The final convulsive struggles of the nation's life grew feebler and fewer.

Of all causes Ireland's seemed the most hopelessly lost.

Was he, too, going to forsake her?
He felt that in spite of all the good promised him there would always hang over his life a gloom that oven Marion's love would not disperse, the heavy shadow of Ireland's Calvary.

For Marion there would be no such darkness, nor would Marion understand it.

But surely Christ understood.