"
"Mind you do," said the Englishman. "I sleep like a blessed top,
you know. Sleep anywhere. Well, good-night for the present. He
looks a little better since you washed him, doesn't he?"
He threw himself on the couch in the inner room, and before long a
titanic snore showed that he had not over-rated his sleeping powers.
Ellen Harriott sat by Red Mick's bedside and thought over the
events of the last few weeks. As she thought she half-dozed, but
woke with a start to find her patient broad awake again and trying
to get at something that was under his bunk. Quietly she drew him
back, for his struggles with Carew had left him weak as a child.
He looked at her with crazed eyes.
"The paper," he said, "for the love of God, the paper. I have to
take it to Gavan. 'Twill win the case. The paper."
She tried to pacify him, but nothing would do but that she should
get the mysterious paper. At last, to humour him, she dived under
the bunk and found an iron camp-oven, and in it a single envelope.
Just to see what was exciting him she opened the envelope, and
found a crumpled piece of paper which she read over to herself. It
was the original certificate of the marriage between Patrick Henry
Keogh and Margaret Donohoe; if Ellen had only known it, she held
in her hand the evidence to sweep away all her friend's troubles.
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