Then rise the shrill screams of women, and over all her father's voice, resolute and undaunted.
"Not from this house, my men." The words come up clearly to her as she stands at the top of the stairs, faint and dizzy with fright. "Not while a drop of blood runs in our veins. You may kill me—it is an easy thing to shoot an old man——" But here his words are drowned in a burst of yells and howlings terrible to listen to.
The next moment Honor is down in the hall, and has pushed her way past her brother and the terrified servants to where her father stands, his back to the dining-room, his face turned toward the little group of men who, with black masks over their faces, have forced their way into the hall.
It is a terrible scene—the girl will never forget it. These uncouth menacing figures, the frightened faces of the women gathered about the staircase, her young brother, as pale as any woman there, but cool and calm. But the one figure distinct from all the rest is that of her father, drawn to his full height, his resolute face turned full upon his cowardly assailants. He looks quite ten years younger than he did when she left him a few hours before, and there is a stern look on his face that frightens her. She has heard of the "fighting Blakes," and she begins to understand that even yet the old spirit has not died out in the race.
He sees her, but he makes no effort to send her away. In this supreme hour of trial the love of his heart recognizes her right to be with him even if it should be the bitter end.
"Go back, Miss Honor!" some one shouts. "Shure, we would not hurt a hair of your head!"
But the girl smiles coldly. She has no fear for herself; her one care, her one dread is for the safety of those others, who are dearer to her a thousand-fold than her own safety.
The men talk fast and furiously, but she hardly hears their words. She is waiting for what must come after, when all their threats have failed, as she knows so well they will fail.
They demand arms—with which they know the house to be well supplied. "Give them arms, and they will go in peace, for the present, squire," one man adds, with menacing emphasis.
For answer Robert Blake raises his right arm, and they see the muzzle of a revolver; and now a louder and more angry cry comes from the crowd.
"You know me, James Phelan," the squire says calmly, addressing an old tenant whose voice he has recognized; "tell these men that I am a dead shot, and I will fire if they come a yard nearer."
For an instant the crowd sways back, then it rallies. Those behind push the front rows mercilessly forward. The men are thoroughly excited now—there are more of them than at first appeared—and Honor feels that the next few moments will decide her fate and that of those dear to her.
Suddenly the great hall lamp falls to the floor with a crash, and the whole place is in profound darkness. For an instant the men, pressing toward their prey, pause, afraid, it may be, of a stray bullet striking them in the obscurity.
Then a loud shout is raised, and the hall, the stairs, the corridors are filled with a struggling, panting, furious mob.
Honor feels herself lifted out of the crowd, and let down inside the library, close to the door.
"Don't move for your life, and don't speak!" a voice says softly, close to her cheek, and then she is alone; and, save for the lightning that illumines the room almost every moment, she is in darkness.
Outside there are loud hoarse cries, heavy blows, and trampling feet, the indescribable horror and confusion of a fierce fight fought with blind rage on both sides.
It cannot be that her father and Horace—for on the servants she does not count at all—are keeping all these men at bay so long!
The suspense becomes torture. She feels that at any risk she must know how things are going, and, cautiously opening the door, she looks out.
The hall is full of police; most of the attacking party have been disarmed—a few have escaped, but she does not know that; three men, however, are making a pretty tough fight for it still. But even as Honor stands and looks on, powerless in her dismay, it is over; the men are struck down and secured.
"This is no sight for you, Honor," a man's voice says suddenly, and, looking up, she sees Brian Beresford before her, with an ugly cut on the temple, from which the blood is flowing freely.
"You!" she gasps, holding her hands out to him with a gesture infinitely touching in one so cold and proud as Honor. "Oh, Brian, I have been wanting you so! I—I thought you would never come back!"
"You see you were mistaken," he says coolly. How the man's pulse are throbbing, how the welcome in her glad sweet eyes has thrilled him, no one looking at him could divine. "I said you were not so unprotected as you imagined," he adds, looking round with a grim smile. "We got here in time to foil the rascals—thanks to Aileen!"
"Why, what had Aileen to do with it? She went home hours ago."
"No, she did not. She crossed the mountain to Drum—a stiff climb for a woman of her years—and gave us notice that the house was to be attacked some time to-night, and off we came."
"Gave you notice?" the girl repeats. She looks dazed and faint, as well she may—a hollow-eyed, white-faced wraith of a girl, in her creased white gown.
The captured men are filing out now in twos and threes, closely guarded. Suddenly Honor starts forward, she has caught sight of a face that, disfigured by blows as it is, she would know among a thousand, and her heart seems to cease beating with the shock.
The tall man marching past between two policemen looks at her for an instant, and then turns his head aside. It is the one thing too much for Honor. With a heart-broken cry that has a thrill of horror in it she falls forward at her cousin's feet.
"Confound the fellow!" he says to himself, as he lifts her gently in his arms, as if she had been a child. "If he had not held out, like the fool he is, she need never have known a word about it."
Kate Dundas's most bitter enemies cannot deny that she is a beautiful woman. Dangerous she may be—a modern Circe, many of whose admirers find their way to Kilmainham, but, above and before everything else, the woman is beautiful. But it is not her face nor her figure, lithe and lissom for all its ripe maturity, that so holds men's hearts in thrall. There is a charm about her, a curious magnetic power that is even more dangerous than her beauty.
"I would not care to see much of your Mrs. Dundas," an old squire once said, talking of her. "I never knew but one woman who had the same coaxing, fooling ways with her, and, begorra, sir, she was a demon in petticoats!"
But that was only the opinion of a blunt old farmer; Launce Blake knows her a great deal better, or thinks he does. In his own way he is almost as handsome as she is; a tall fair man, with eyes so dark a gray that they look black under their thick lashes and a smile as sweet as a woman's. But, as he sits in Mrs. Dundas's pretty room to-night, he is not smiling—he has come here from Colonel Frenche's, as his father guessed he would—he is looking very stern indeed, and "altogether unmanageable," as Kate Dundas says to herself. It is not the first time by many that she has seen him in this mood. Launce is not one of her humble adorers, and perhaps she likes him all the better on that account.
"I am sure I don't know why you should be so angry," she is saying, in her pretty soft voice, which has just a touch of the Devonshire accent in it. "The man is nothing to me; but since he brought a letter from the poor major's old friend, Major Cregan, I had to be civil to him. I couldn't—could I, now"—coaxingly—"send him back again?"
Launce listens gravely; it is quite a long speech for her to make—as a rule, her eyes, her slow sweet smiles, speak for her.
"That sounds very well—and it may be true, as far as it goes—but it is not all the truth."
"Oh, Launce, how unkind you are!" She is lying back in her chair, the lamplight falling upon her bare arms, her round white throat, and the diamond cross that sparkles on her bosom.
Her dress of some soft yellow stuff that shines like silk and drapes like velvet. She wears no flowers or ornaments of any kind, except the cross on her breast and some old-fashioned gold pins in her hair. Launce Blake, as he looks at her, feels the glamour of her beauty stealing over him like a spell.
His heart is beating furiously; his jealousy and distrust are waning fast before the passion of his love that is grown to be a part of his life.
"Is it any wonder that I am racked with fear? You are so beautiful, any man must love you! And this Hunter—who is he, that he should take his place in the house more like the master of it than a mere guest? And what right has he to keep every one away from you?"
"Dear"—she laughs softly; she has such an exquisite laugh—liquid, entrancing—"the man is ridiculous, I grant you. But then—so many men are ridiculous!"
Is she laughing at him? The eyes raised to his have just a touch of mockery in their lustrous depths, or he fancies they have. He is never quite sure of her—this woman who holds him by so strong a tie. There are times when he is driven half frantic by her "humor," just as there are times when he thinks himself the happiest man on earth because she loves him.
"We are all fools where a woman is concerned!" he says bluntly, and walks to one of the windows, setting it wide open, and letting the wind rush in with a shriek that makes Mrs. Dundas start in her chair.
"Oh, what a terrible night!" she says shivering. "I do not envy you your ride over the bog, if you take that road."
"Of course I shall take it, as usual! Why not?"
She is looking at him, a curious anxiety in her drooping eyes.
"But Launce, is it safe as things are now?"
"Safe or not, I choose to take it," he says coldly.
"But Mr. Hunter was saying only to-day that you are too venturesome."
"Mr. Hunter is an Englishman and, if he is not misjudged, a spy; it is only natural he should think so."
"A spy?" she repeats, paling a little and looking at him—she has risen, and is standing with him before the open window—with eager, questioning eyes. "Who says he is a spy?"
"More people than I could name are of that opinion."
"But do you think he is a spy, Launce?"
"Faith, I neither know nor care what he is! He is not a gentleman!Anyone could see that with half an eye!"
She turns from him with a little passionate gesture, and her face—though he cannot see it—looks for an instant almost cruel in its anger.
"You are so fastidious, dear. We cannot all be Blakes of Donaghmore, you know."
"We can all speak the truth, I hope, and the fellow doesn't even do that."
"Ah!" she says coldly. "Then it would be useless to ask you to stay to dinner and spend the evening in such company?"
It is what he has been longing to do; but something in her voice or her face as she turns aside jars upon him. As they stand there they can hear the thud of horses' hoofs coming at a rapid pace down the Boyne road—it is Mrs. Dundas's guests returning. It is getting dark fast now, and the wind is already furious in its strength as it sweeps down from the mountains.
"Do shut that window, Launce, or we shall have all the lamps blown out!"
He does her bidding mechanically; then he turns and looks at her standing beside him in her pretty gown, the one woman, so he tells himself, who is all in all to him.
Nearer and nearer come the hoof-beats; the precious moments are flying fast; and if they are to make up their little quarrel to-night there is no time to lose.
"I am going now, Kate. Am I to go like this?"
"You are so cross, Launce," she murmurs.
"Nay, give things their right names! Say I am jealous—madly jealous, because I am in love!"
"Oh, if you are only jealous, dear——"
"You know I am as jealous as ever poor Othello was."
"And with as little cause," she whispered softly, nestling her cheek against his shoulder.
The riders are at the gate now; in another minute they will be in the house; taking her in his arms, Launce kisses her and lets her go.
"My darling, how could I live till to-morrow if we had parted in anger now?" he whispers, looking at her with eager impassioned eyes.
Is it fancy, or does the face raised to his suddenly become harsh and wan? He looks down at her, startled; but there is no time for questions—the gentlemen are in the hall now, all talking and laughing at once, it would appear, by the noise they make, and he must go.
A light rain is falling as he passes out at the gate; he will have to walk home, for he sent his horse back by the groom more than an hour ago. The road is intensely dark; but that is nothing to him—he knows every inch of the way, just as he knows every inch of the dangerous path across the bog which he will have to take to reach Donaghmore. In spite of the wind there is a mist—a low clinging gray mist which hides the fields, nay, the very hedgerows between which he walks, and carries sounds—the bark of a dog, the shout of some lad out after his cattle[,] even the echoes of steps far ahead of him on the road—in the most marvelous manner. He is just turning aside to step down into the bog path when a dim shape flits out, like a ghost, from the midst and bars his way.
"Who is there?" he says gruffly. "What do you want?"
"Thank goodness, it's your honor's self!" a woman's voice answers timidly. "I am Patsy McCann, Mr. Launce. Ye mind me?"
"To be sure, Patsy! But what on earth brings you here at this hour, and in such a storm too? I hope you don't come so far from home to do your courting, Patsy?"
"Troth, an coorting's not in my head, yer honor! I've other and blacker thoughts to trouble me!"
"I'm sorry for that, Patsy."
He speaks kindly—it is his nature to speak kindly to a woman—but he is impatient to get home.
"Whist!" the girl whispers, pressing closer to him, till he can see her eyes raised eagerly to his. "Don't go for to cross the bog to-night, Misther Launce. Shure the longest way round is the shortest way home! Don't press a poor girl to speak plainer, but turn back, as you vally your life, Misther Launce!"
"Tut, tut, my girl! I'm far too tired to walk round by Drum at this hour."
"Walk till yer drop, Misther Blake, but don't cross the bog this night."
"Then you must tell why."
But the girl only wrings her hands and moans. She had not expected to meet with opposition of this kind. She took it for granted that when he heard it would not be safe to cross the bog he would go back. She did not know the temper of the Blakes of Donaghmore.
"There, get home, Patsy," he says at last, out of patience; and he is feeling tired after his long day's sport too. "It's time all honest girls were at their own firesides."
"Sorra an inch will I stir till yez promise not to put yer foot on the bog this night! Shure the boys are out, not by twos nor threes, but by scores; yez would be shot down before yez could get half-way over!"
"Ah!" he says, and draws a deep breath. It is not a pleasant prospect, but the hot blood of a fighting race is running fiercely in his veins.
At this moment the sound of men marching in step comes through the stillness. Yielding to an impulse for which he could find no reason, Launce draws back a step—the girl has disappeared as if the earth had opened and swallowed her—and in another second a small party of men, walking two abreast, is close beside him—county police unmistakably; and a tall, upright man is a little in advance of the rest. He is speaking in a low voice as they come up, but Launce hears every word.
"Good idea to think of following young Blake. They are sure to assault him; they have been waiting for a chance like this for weeks past. Then we must just close in and catch as many of the rascals as we can. Look out for this Magill—a tall fellow in a soft felt hat. I would give fifty pounds to land that fellow safe and sound in Kilmainham."
As Launce listens a furious anger stirs within him—a rage so strong that it is as much as he can do to refrain from springing out upon the cowardly speaker. He knows the man now—he would recognize those smooth false tones among a thousand—it is Mr. Hunter, Mrs. Dundas's guest and friend, the man whom from the first he has disliked and distrusted. A horrible suspicion, a chill doubt, makes him shake from head to foot. Did Kate know of this? Could it be that the woman he loved had seen him go out, a predestined victim, so that this spy might lodge one or two more rebels in Kilmainham jail? A bitter word breaks from his lips as he thinks of it. This poor girl—for now that the police have passed Patsy has reappeared, like a phantom, out of the darkness—in her ignorance and helplessness has been more true to him than the woman he has loved so passionately.
"You have saved my life, Patsy, and I'll not forget it; but I'm not sure that it would not have been better for me to have gone on in my ignorance and taken my chance!" he says grimly.
"The saints be thanked!" the girl answers solemnly. "I have done what I said I would do, and my heart is aisy this night!"
A chill gray dawn is breaking when Honor Blake opens her eyes. She is in bed in her own room, and her father is siting beside her, watchful and anxious. At first she wonders to see him there, then slowly a dim sense of pain and fear comes back to her.
"You are better?" he says cheerily. "That's right! I'll go away now, and you'll get a sleep; but Aileen shall stay in the room, in case you should feel faint again."
"Faint?" she repeats, with a smile. "Have I been faint then?"
"Faith and you have, my dear! I never knew any one stay so long in a swoon before. I half thought you were dead when I saw you first; but you are better now, and we'll talk no more about it."
As he rises, she sees that he carries his left arm in a sling and that he looks tired and pale. Then suddenly every detail of the past night comes back to her, and she feels for a few seconds as if she should sink back into unconsciousness again.
"It's nothing—a mere scratch; but they insisted on dressing it up like this!" her father cries hastily, seeing the change that has crept into her face. "No one is much hurt but that rascally groom of yours. He's got a skinful that will keep him quiet, or I'm mistaken!"
"Father," the girl whispers faintly, "some one was in it last night who—who must be saved at any price. It would kill me, I think"—pantingly—"if harm came to him."
Her father's face, as he listens, has grown as hard as a face cut out of granite; and she knows, before a word is spoken, that her plea has fallen upon deaf ears.
"They must take their chance," he says grimly; "I would not stir a finger to save the life of any one of them."
Honor knows that there is no more to be said; but as she sinks back among her pillows, a passionate determination to save this man whom she loves rises in her heart. But does she love him? He has been very dear to her all her life; but now a great gulf has opened between them—they can never be to each other as they have been. The past is as dead as the love that made it so bright and so beautiful; but, for the sake of that dead past, she feels that she must save him from the consequence of this mad folly into which he has been led or driven.
The birds are singing, now, the sky has grown suddenly rosy, and the new day is as calm and bright as the night was wild and stormy. But to Honor Blake no peace comes, no brightness. It seems to her she shall never know peace again.
As she is turning into the morning-room, a heavy step on the tiled floor makes her look round; and Launce stands before her. With a glad cry the girl flies to him.
"Oh, Launce," she sobs, "we thought you were shot last night; and we——"
But he stops her almost impatiently.
"And what happened here last night? What is the meaning of that—and that?"—pointing at bullet-holes in the walls and the door.
"Why, Launce, have you not heard?"
"I have heard nothing," he says shortly, "about Donaghmore."
She looks at him wonderingly—at his soiled dress, his haggard face and fierce eyes, so unlike the face and eyes of her favorite brother.
"Where have you been all night, Launce? And what has happened to make you look so dreadfully ill and—and strange?"
He has followed her into the morning-room and closed the door behind them.
"I have been to Drum with the body of that fellow who was shot on the moss."
"Oh, Launce, who was he?"
He sinks down upon a chair before he answers her—a man tired in body and mind. Utterly worn out he looks now in the clear strong light.
"He was Mrs. Dundas's friend and guest—her lover, for all I can tell," he says scornfully. "I hope she is proud of him and of the end he has come to. He was shot down like a dog. I heard the cry he gave, I was so close behind him."
The tears are rolling down Honor's cheeks; she is trembling so that she can scarcely stand.
"Oh, Launce," she cries piteously, "and it might have been you!"
"It ought to have been," her brother says, with a low harsh laugh that echoes dismally through the quiet sunny room. "That is where the mistake comes in!" Honor looks at him in dismay. He is so unlike himself that he frightens her. "I was to have gone first—according to their program—so that the men might attack me and give the police the chance of coming down upon them unawares. She saw me go out of her house to what she thought would be certain death, and she never lifted a finger to keep me back. That was womanly, wasn't it?"
The girl cannot answer him. She has never liked this woman—she has shrunk from and distrusted her always; but she never dreamed she could be capable of treachery so base and cruel as this.
"And whom do you think they were after?" Launce says, after a pause. "Power Magill! To think of a man like that being mixed up with the rabble rout that was out last night! But they missed him; and, though I hate the fellow, I was glad that they did."
The girl has crossed the room and is standing close beside him now, her hand on the arm of his chair, her white face bent toward him.
"No, Launce, they did not miss him—he was taken here!" He listens; but it is evident that he does not understand. "Yes, in this house," the girl goes on coldly, "where he has been a welcome guest and friend all his life! He came in with the rest to threaten and rob—and murder, too, if need be, I have no doubt! We have been fortunate in our friends and neighbors, Launce!"
"By Jove!" he gasps, and sits and stares at her—a man thoroughly startled and distressed.
Not to him need she apply for help in the plan that has already vaguely formed itself in her mind. She knows quite well that he would rather hinder then help her in any effort to save Power Magill. If he is to be saved at all, it must be at once, before they have time to remove him to Dublin; and the girl's heart throbs and her brain grows dizzy as she tries to think out her simple yet daring scheme. It is that some one—as near his height and build as possible—should get leave to visit him, and then that they should change clothes, and Power Magill should walk out in place of his visitor. She has read of such things being done before; why should they not be done again? But the question is, What man in the county would willingly take the place of Power Magill?
"It must be done," the girl says to herself, as she listens to the talk going on about her; for of course every one is talking of the men taken in the affray of the past night, and their chances of heavy punishment. "Some one can be got surely, to run the risk—if not for love, then for money!"
Brian Beresford is away at Drum; and she is glad of it—it would be awkward to have him about the house at the present crisis.
About a mile from Donaghmore, on the Boyne road, stands a cottage that, in the summer season, is almost hidden from sight by the masses of wild roses and jasmine that cover its old walls. It is a picturesque little place enough, and wondrously clean for an Irish cottage; but it is not in good repute in the place. Magistrates shake their heads when they hear of meetings held on the quiet at Hugh Scanlan's; and more than once terror and disaster have been carried into quiet homes by order of the men who meet there.
Scanlan is a man over eighty, but erect and vigorous, and full of subtle cunning. It is to this man Honor turns in trouble and perplexity. He is no friend of hers—all her life she has been taught to look upon him as an evil man and a bad neighbor, who would do any harm that lay in his power to her or hers. But to this she never gives a thought now. Power must be helped; and, if any man in Donaghmore can help him, it is Scanlan.
The afternoon sun shines brightly upon the strip of garden as she opens the gate and walks up to the half-closed door. From the threshold she can see all round the one room that the place contains. It is low, and would be dim but for the great fire burning, hot as the day is, on the low hearth. The owner of the cottage has been sitting before the fire smoking; but, at the sight of Honor standing on his doorstep, he rises to his feet.
"Good-evening!" the girl says in her low clear voice. "I want very much to speak to you! May I come in?"
For an instant the ready tact of his race seems to forsake the old man, and he stares at her stupidly.
"Robert Blake's daughter asking to come into my house?" he mutters, raising his withered hands with a gesture of the most intense surprise.
"Yes," the girl answers gently. "I am in trouble; and I want you to help me, if you will."
She has stepped forward uninvited, and is close beside him now, looking up into his face with eyes that have not a shadow of fear or even distrust in them.
"There are more than yourself in the deep trouble this day, miss."
"Yes; and it is about one who is in deep trouble that I have come to talk to you."
He has placed a chair for her full in the light of the open door, where he can see every sign of feeling that crosses her face; but he keeps well in the shade himself. Oh, how Honor's heart beats as she looks up at him and realizes that in this very room the leaders of last night's outrage may have met to arrange their plans! She is not afraid, though her reason tells her there might be grave cause for fear in placing herself in the hands of a treacherous man and an open enemy of her father's house.
"Faith, miss, an' if it's all wan to you, you may do the talking and I'll listen! Talking is mighty dangerous for the loikes of me, these times!"
"Yes, I know," the girl replies; "but I do not want you to talk. I will tell you what I want you to do, and then you can say, 'Yes' or 'No,' as you think best. But, oh"—with a sudden clasping of the gloved hands lying on her lap—"I do hope you will say 'Yes'!"
And simply and clearly, her pretty voice broken in its earnestness, her eyes shining like stars as they fix themselves on the gray wrinkled face before her, she tells him what it is she wants done, and how much she can offer toward paying for the doing of it.
"It is not much," she says, looking at the small roll of Irish pound-notes in her hand, "but it is all I have of my own in the world; and, when he is free, he will pay you himself liberally."
The old man listens to her like one lost in a dream. She looks to him more like an angel than a living woman as she stands there pleading so earnestly—for, in her agitation, she has risen and is facing him, the sunshine falling like a glory all about her.
In his excitement he takes to blessing her in Irish, and, as the rapid words, instinct with strong feeling, [lack in the text] upon her ears, Honor draws back disconcerted.
"Are you angry?" she says. "I thought you would have been glad to help him! He has given up everything—friends, position, home, and country, it may be, for this cause to which you belong."
"And I have nothing to give up but my life," the old man answers with sudden unlooked-for dignity; "and that I would lay down this hour to see him free and safe once more."
"Then you will help us?" she says eagerly.
"Shure I'm the most helpless of ould creatures, but I'll do what I can," he answers guardedly, and with so swift a change of voice and manner that Honor almost loses hope.
However, there is no choice left her now, nothing to be done but to give the man her poor little bribe and go home, leaving Power Magill to his mercy.
Little does the girl dream, as she walks sadly back to Donaghmore through the waning light, that she has formed a protecting barrier round the old home and its inmates that will outlast the storms of years.
Very slowly the days pass at Donaghmore; a detachment of the constabulary keeps strict guard over the old house, the master of which lies sick unto death.
It seems as if the old man's life is fading with the year. The shot that entered his arm shattered the bone immediately below the elbow, and, the wound not healing, this, together with the shock and excitement of that night's work, is telling on him.
Honor goes about like a ghost; she looks pitifully changed; but there is only faithful old Aileen to be troubled by her looks. Launce has gone back to Dublin and Horace has joined his regiment at Aldershot.
One care has been lifted off the girl's heart; Power Magill is no longer a prisoner.
The first thing that Honor heard on her return from Scanlan's cottage was that Power Magill and two others had got away, having given their guards the slip on the mountain road between Glen Doyle and Drum.
The body of the man who was shot on the moss that terrible night has been taken to Dublin by his friends, to be buried among his own people; and, if he was Kate Dundas's lover, as Launce in his jealous rage declared, the widow has certainly taken his loss very coolly.
But there is one thing that she is not taking quite so coolly, and that is the desertion of her admirers. Rose Mount is no longer the center of attraction to the neighborhood—its pretty drawing-room is deserted. Men do not care to visit at a house about which such ugly reports are circulated. They even fight shy of its beautiful mistress in public, and this is perhaps the cruelest form which punishment could assume for such a woman as Mrs. Dundas. She knows nothing of friendship and very little of love, but her desire for admiration is boundless, and her chance of that in Drum or Donaghmore is at an end forever.
November has set in cold and stormy. It seems to Honor, nervous and anxious as she is, that the wind never ceases day or night, and sometimes its shrill moans make her feel as if she were going mad.
Her father is able to come down-stairs now, but he misses the boys, and complains fretfully of the loneliness of the house.
One day Honor walks over to the rectory to see Belle Delorme. Belle is in the drawing-room reading a yellow-bound novel, which she slips dexterously out of sight at the sound of her visitor's voice.
Belle is not quite so piquant and dashing as she used to be, perhaps; but if she has been fretting for Launce—as Honor thinks—she has certainly lost none of her good looks in the process.
She looks up now with a smile as Honor enters.
"I was just going over to tell you the news, dear. I know you never hear anything at Donaghmore."
"The news!" Honor falters, turning from white to crimson; her first thought being of some new danger threatening Power Magill.
"Oh, it's nothing very wonderful—perhaps nothing that you will call news after all!" Belle says hurriedly, seeing that swift blush and understanding it. "It is just that Ross Mount is closed, and its mistress has flown away to England. Sure they are saying now that she has a husband over there, alive and well, a farmer somewhere in Devonshire. Maybe she has gone back to him."
"Maybe she has," Honor assents coldly.
"And they are saying too," Belle goes on more gravely, and looking anxiously at her friend, "that the two men who were with Power Magill have got off to America. I'm sure I hope it is true!"
Honor says not a word. She is thinking of the man who is left a homeless wanderer on his native mountains—an exile within sight of his own walls!
"It's an awful pity about poor Power, isn't it, Honor? Sometimes I cry my eyes red thinking of him," Belle goes on in her pretty plaintive voice; "and I often think he must have gone with the rest to Donaghmore to keep them in order. He couldn't have gone, you know, to—to do any harm!"
Honor looks at her gratefully, and the words linger in her mind and comfort her in some vague way during her long and lonely walk to Donaghmore.
The sun has set as she enters the gates, and a mist which has crept up from the river makes the wide empty space on her left, as she walks up toward the house, look more like a lake than solid earth.
She has left the ruins behind her, not without a nervous shiver in passing, when the sound of a step, falling lightly but regularly on the strip of grass by the side of the drive, arrests her attention and sets her heart beating rapidly.
"It is all my own foolish fancy," she says to herself, and walks faster.
The step follows faster too. She stops, and instantly that light footfall is silent. Not a creature is to be seen. The old ruins rise grim and bare between her and the pale evening sky, but not a sound comes from them.
"It must have been my own fancy," she tells herself, and, reassured, starts forward almost at a run.
But listen! Again the step sounds behind her; more distant and far less rapid than her own, but clear and unmistakable. Her heart gives a great throb, the color dies out of her cheeks, and by the time she reaches her own door she feels ready to fall from haste and fear.
The old butler is crossing the hall and he looks at her curiously.
"Have you seen anything to startle you, Miss Honor?" he says at last.
"No; I have seen nothing. Why do you ask?" Not for worlds would she own to any one the ghostly fears that shook her out there in the dusky avenue, with the sound of those following steps in her ears.
"Well," adds the butler, "one of the girls has just come in, miss, in a state of great fright, and says that she saw the old abbot himself at the corner of the avenue, watching the house for all the world as if it held some treasure of his own."
"Nonsense!" Honor says, turning suddenly pale, even in the lighted hall. "I hope these silly tales are not going to begin again. Your master will be very displeased if they come to his ears."
As she enters the sitting-room she sees that her father is not alone.
A tall man is standing on the rug before the fire, talking with much animation. It is Brian Beresford.
"I have taken the liberty of invading you without even an invitation," he says, coming forward with outstretched hand.
"And you are welcome," the girl answers softly. "Besides, your last invasion was so well timed, we may well forgive this one."
"Ah," he says, smiling gravely, "that was a rough sort of invasion! I hope I shall never have to attack Donaghmore in that fashion again."
"I hope not indeed!" Honor agrees promptly. "I don't think I could live through another night like that."
"Oh, yes, you could—through a dozen such, if necessary. I quite admired your bravery. I never saw a young lady so cool under fire before."
She blushes as she listens; her heart thrills with a half-reluctant pride at his praise.
"What has come to me," she says to herself crossly, "that I can't look at the man without blushing? It's time I had more sense."
"I have come to stay a day or two," he tells them.
A week passes, however, and he does not go away. To Honor it is a week of very mixed sensations. She has never before known any one like this stolid Englishman, who under all his composure hides a passion so fiery, a will so strong.
On his part he is very grave and gentle. Not once does a word of love pass his lips; and she is glad of it, for she is in no mood to think of love or lovers.
"It would be horrible to think of such things," she tells herself, "while poor Power Magill is wandering in homeless misery."
She is thinking of him to-night as she looks out at the moonlight, lying chill and white on the grass and the bare flower-beds.
"Where is he now?" she asks herself with a shivering sigh, as she listens to the restless creak and sough of the trees. It is a question she is asking continually; but who can answer it?
He may be lying dead on some bare hillside, or at the bottom of some dark gorge in the mountains.
From the drawing-room window she can see across to the drive. Some one is coming slowly toward the house—a girl, little more than a child, with an old cloak flung over her head—country fashion. Honor watches her, and wonders which of the village people have been brave enough to pass the ruins of Donaghmore at this hour.
The girl comes straight on to the window at which Honor is still standing. When she is quite close she opens her cloak and holds out a letter—not a bulky letter, a mere scrap, closely twisted; and, without a second thought, Honor raises the window and takes it out of her hand.
"Who has sent it, Nora?"—for she recognizes the child now that she sees her face.
But Nora only shakes her head and hurries away, passing over the moonlit grass like the mere shadow of a girl.
The gentlemen are stirring in the dining-room now; she can hear their chairs being set back, and her father's voice as he opens the door for their guest.
There is not a moment to be lost if she is to read her letter in secret, and instinctively she feels that it is meant for no eyes but her own. Untwisting it rapidly, she spreads it out and reads:
"Will you venture to the old ruins at dusk to-morrow, to see one who needs your forgiveness, even if you must refuse him your pity? P. M."
As she reads the tears rush into her eyes, half blinding her; the sorrowful pleading words grow dim and indistinct.
"How he must have suffered," she says to herself, "to have changed like this!" Masterful Power, who used always to take obedience for granted! There is something pitiful in it that goes straight to the tender woman's heart, loyal to its old traditions.
As she was putting the paper into the bosom of her dress, the drawing-room door opens, and Brian Beresford enters, followed by her father. Brian's eyes at once seek her where she stands beside the open window, her fingers playing nervously with the tell-tale scrap of paper.
His face darkens at once, and she knows that he has seen and understood.
Never has time passed so slowly to Honor Blake. All the morning she goes about her work with a listless preoccupied air that could not fail to attract attention if there were any one to heed the girl or her moods.
Perhaps Brian Beresford heeds them; but Honor never gives a thought to him. She would be glad if he would go away and leave her to herself; but since he makes no such offer, she puts up with him.
And now, in the late afternoon, she sits down at the piano, more to pass the time than to amuse their guest. In truth, as she plays she forgets him altogether. The music, now low and sweet, now wild and martial, soothes her and brings back some of her lost nerve.
Brian Beresford, looking and listening, frowns, and then sighs. She is an enigma to him, this stately, contradictory Irish girl, with her moods and her prejudices, and, above all, her reserve. He has met no one quite like her. The women of his world are of a totally different type—he can understand them easily; but Honor he cannot understand.
He feels his heart soften as he looks at her. He is proud, and it has jarred upon his pride terribly that a man like Power Magill should have been preferred to him.
"And the chances are, now the fellow is in disgrace, she will cling to him all the closer," he says to himself bitterly. He does not care to own it, but in his heart he is savagely jealous of Power Magill.
Very softly is Honor playing now—a sort of dirge or lament for the chief of a clan. Suddenly she stops, and her head droops low over the keys. She has forgotten everything but the sore pain at her own heart and the anxious dread that is making every breath a torture to her.
"What if he should be taken to-night?" she is saying to herself. "How do we know that that child is to be trusted? How dare he trust any one when there is such a heavy reward out for him—poor Power?"
The tears come into her eyes as she thinks of him. It grows more bitter to her every moment, the thought of this meeting that is so close at hand now.
"Honor," Brian says gently, "will you not let me help you? You are in some trouble, I know." He has crossed the room and is standing beside her. "You can trust me, surely?"
"I could trust you with my life; but this secret is not my own."
"I know it is not; nevertheless you might trust it to me."
She raises her head and looks at him, and something in his face brings the color into her own. He is very brave and true, a safe shelter in trouble—she has proved that—and her heart yearns for the help he could give her. But it may not be. His sympathies are all on the side of law and order, and she has ranged herself, for this one night at least, among the opposite ranks.
"Don't think me curious, Honor," he says earnestly; "but I am sure you are in need of a friend's help, and I would like you to let me give it."
"No one can help me—not even you," she answers gently, getting up and looking at him with those troubled eyes that move him so strangely.
"And yet you are so good to me always that I should like to tell you my trouble if I might. But it is better not, perhaps."
"Let me say one thing, Honor. If this trouble of yours is connected with Power Magill—and I believe it is—you will not forget that he is a dangerous man, a man not to be trusted."
"I will not forget," she answers with a shiver, as she thinks of the meeting that is drawing nigh so rapidly.
The sun has set, and a cold mist is rising. It is very peaceful but rather dreary outside; and inside, in the familiar pretty room, the shadows are gathering.
Brian Beresford draws a step nearer. He had not meant to say one word of love to her—this willful girl who makes so light of him and his devotion; but, standing so close beside her in this tender gray twilight, impulse masters his judgment.
"Honor, has my love no power to touch you? Must this man forever stand between us even in his——" He is going to say disgrace, but the piteous look on the girl's face stays him.
"Oh, Brian, don't talk to me of love now—I cannot bear it!"
It is the first time she has ever called him Brian, and in her face, as she turns it from him, crimson from brow to chin, in her very attitude, as she stands with clasped hands before him, there is some subtle change that chills him.
"Then promise me that when times are brighter and you are happier you will listen to me, Honor."
"Perhaps," she stammers; and then, with tears in her eyes: "Oh, how cruel I am! I'm not worth loving!" And she is gone before he can say another word.
For so stoical a man, Brian Beresford is strangely excited to-night. Long after Honor has left him he walks up and down the darkening room, and, when the old butler comes in to light the lamps, he goes out on to the terrace and continues his measured tramp to and fro, smoking and thinking, and watching he scarcely knows for what.
Ever since he saw Honor hide away that scrap of paper in her dress he has been tormented with jealous fears.
"If the fellow were once out of the country I should feel all right," he tells himself. But the fellow is not out of the country—nay, may be in the immediate neighborhood for all he can tell, and in consequence he is racked with anxiety.
From the terrace he can see the ruins clearly at first; then the mist partly blots them out, and presently he can only guess at their position. But he has no interest in the ruins. He is not in the least superstitious; and certainly he does not believe in the old abbot.
He has reached the end of the walk and turned to go back, when the sight of a tall slight figure, coming rapidly down the steps not many yards away, brings him to a sudden halt.
"Ah!" he says, as he recognizes Honor. "Then it was not without cause that I've been so uneasy! A warning, these people would call it, I suppose."
It is a terrible blow to him, striking to the very root of his love. He hates mystery; and to find this girl, whom he had thought perfect in her maidenly pride and purity, stealing out in the dark from her father's house fills him with dismay.
For an instant he feels tempted to follow and speak to her, then he turns back. He can hardly control himself so far as to speak calmly, and every faint far-away noise makes him start.
"She is safe enough," he tells himself a dozen times; but he finds no comfort in his own assertions.
In his heart he feels convinced that she has gone to meet Power Magill; and in his jealous fury he almost hates her for it.
"Where is Honor?" her father asks fretfully; and then, as time goes on and she does not come in, he says again, "Where can Honor be?"
"I will go and find her for you," Brian says at last—he can bear the suspense no longer. "She cannot have strayed very far. I was talking to her a while ago."
He speaks lightly enough, but his heart is not light. A curious depression has come upon him. It seems to him that his love for this girl has died, and that half the brightness of his life has died along with it. He has not the least idea in what direction to begin his search.
The heavy iron gates at the end of the avenue are closed, but not locked, and he opens them and walks out into the high-road. Once, as he passes a narrow lane, he fancies he hears a slight rustle in the bushes that grow close and low at the side of the path; but, when he stops to listen, he can hear nothing, and so sets it down to fancy.
"Surely she has not gone into the village on a night like this," he says to himself at last, daunted by his want of success; and at the bare surmise he feels his face burn hotly.
Turning, he walks rapidly back—for the village lies in the opposite direction, past Donaghmore—and, as he comes near the gates, he is startled to see a car drawn up by the side of the high wall, and evidently waiting for somebody.
The driver has been standing beside his horse, and at the sound of Brian's step he leads the animal slowly forward. Apparently he does not wish to be seen; and indeed he might easily escape the notice of any one less quick of sight than Brian Beresford.
"Hallo!" Brian shouts; but he receives no answer; and, taking a stride or two, he gains the horse's side. The man walks on the other side of the animal, close by the wall; and, what with the darkness and the way his hat is pulled down over his eyes, his own mother might be pardoned for not recognizing him.
"Whose car is this?" Brian demands sternly, "and for whom are you waiting here?"
"Sorrer a sowl I'm waiting for, your honor! The best face in Derry wouldn't tempt me this minute. I'm just dead beat meself—and the baste! It's to Boyne Fair we've been this day, and a terrible time entoirely we've had of it."
Brian looks at the man and stops. He seems to be speaking the truth; and, if he is not, Brian knows the Irish peasant too well by this time to expect to force it from him.
With a short "Good-night," he turns away, and the man looks after him with a scowl.
"It's a bullet in yer skin that I'd give yez this blessed night if I dare take my own way," he mutters savagely.
Very slowly Brian Beresford walks back to Donaghmore. He is not so calm now, not so sure of Honor's safety. His fears are rising with every step he takes through the murky darkness. He feels that, if she is not in the house when he reaches it, he shall be able to keep silence no longer. Even at the risk of betraying her secret the squire must be told.
As he is passing the ruins a faint sound reaches his ear. He stops instantly and listens, his head bent, every sense on the alert. He is not thinking of Honor now—not in his wildest dreams would he connect her in any way with these weird unholy old ruins; but he is anxious—as anxious as ever Launce was—to solve the mystery that attaches to the place. Again it comes, a long-drawn, gasping cry, with this time a ring of fear in it.
"Good heavens, it is a woman!" he says, and goes quickly, but very quietly and cautiously, in the direction of the sound.
He has gained the low-browed gateway leading into the great quadrangle, when a dark figure dashes past him, and the next instant there is a loud report. He feels a sharp pain in his shoulder, and knows that he has been hit; but he does not give a thought to that in his intense excitement. He is conscious of but one thing—Honor's voice calling his name.
"Brian—oh, Brian, come to me!" The shrill clear tones ring through the ghostly silence.
Honor hastens down the avenue, looking neither to the right nor left. Her head is dizzy, her heart beating heavily in this nervous dread that has come upon her. She starts at every shadow that crosses her path; the sound of the wind in the pine-trees almost makes her scream, and when, just as she reaches the ruins, a low whistle breaks the quiet, a sharp cry of terror escapes her lips.
"Whist, miss! It's a friend," a deep voice whispers close beside her, though she can see no one; and the next moment Power Magill comes out from the low doorway and calls her gently by name.
"My darling, this has been too much for you!" he says, seeing the dread on her face as she stands close beside him. "I should not have asked you to come here; but I felt that I could not go away till I had seen your face, and heard you tell me with your own lips that you have forgiven me."
He has led her across the great paved court to a corner where they can stand together without being seen by any one passing along the avenue.
There is something awful in the silence that broods round them; but the girl's nerves are too much shaken for her to be quite conscious of her surroundings. The man standing beside her is no less agitated.
"Honor, you know that, in acting as I did, I brought suffering upon myself—horrible suffering—apart from all social considerations! You have never doubted my love? You are true to me still; and I'm thankful for it. I would rather see you dead at my feet than know you were false to your solemn promise!"
The passionate voice, speaking so close to her ear that she can feel his hot breath on her cheek, the pale eager face peering into hers, as if to read its secret even in the darkness, strikes a sudden chill through the girl. For the first time personal fear—fear of the man before her—assails her.
"Have you no word for me?" the man pleads wistfully. "You stand there like a spirit, and say no word of comfort or of pity! By heavens, if I did not know all that you dared for my sake, I should swear that you had no love in your heart for me!"
"Love for you!" she cries at last, speaking on the impulse of the moment, as it is in her nature to speak. "Why should I love you? What love had you for me when you shot my father—when——"
But he steps her almost savagely.
"I fired only one shot that night; but— [lack in the text] ses on my false aim!—that missed the man I hated."
"And that man was Brian Beresford?"
"Yes," he answers slowly, defiantly, even, "it was Brian Beresford. It is no fault of mine he is alive to-night."
"And you would have killed him?" she cries, drawing back from him.
"Why not? He would have sent me to Kilmainham."
He is changed already—the girl divines this instinctively, and shrinks still farther away from him against the damp wall. This life that he has led—separated from friends and equals—has done its work.
"And now, Honor, we have no time to lose. Everything is ready for me to get away to-night, but"—with a sudden break in the passionate voice—"oh, my love, I cannot go without you!"
"You cannot go without me, Power?" the girl gasps. In her wildest dreams no such fancy as this had risen to trouble her. "But you must go without me! I cannot go with you!"
"And why not, if you love me?"
"But I do not love you," the girl says calmly. "I am very sorry for you; but all love is done with between us. Surely, Power, after that night you knew it would be so?"
He does not answer her, and his silence fills her with more anxiety and fear than could any passionate outburst.
He has walked to the end of the court, and stands there, looking over the broken parapet. Once she fancies that he raises his hand, as though beckoning to some one, but she is not certain, because it is so dark and he is so far off. As she stands shivering, she hears a step go slowly past. Surely it is Brian's step? Oh, what would she not give for the sight of his face now? And then his warning comes back to her—"He's a dangerous man—a man not to be trusted." Can it be that he knew him better than she did? Power himself has not been careful to keep this meeting from his friends. More than once she has caught a glimpse of dark figures passing to and fro at the farther end of the court, where the pillars are still standing; and, as she realizes the fact that she is alone, a helpless girl, in the midst of these men, desperate and lawless as she knows them to be, it is only by an immense effort she keeps from screaming aloud. It would be useless, she knows—it might even bring about the very results she has most to dread.
"Honor," her lover says, coming back to her, "I have no time to plead with you, and sure I have no need to tell you again how I love you. I thought and hoped you would have come with me this night of your own free will; but since you will not do that, by St. Joseph, you shall come without it!"
From the road comes a sudden shrill whistle, and the girl's heart sinks within her. Oh, how mad she has been to put herself in the power of this man and his associates!
For an instant, as she leans against the wall behind her, a faintness steals over her. Her eyes grow dim, and there is a sound in her ears like the rush and roar of the weir down the river.
When this feeling has passed away she hears Power's voice speaking, as it seems to her dizzy brain, out of great darkness.
"There is a car waiting to take us to Boyne. Once there we are with friends, and you can make all needful preparations for our journey."
She does not answer him; she could not. Her lips are dry and quivering with the terror that has come upon her.
At this moment some one glides from behind a pillar and touches Power on the arm. With an impatient gesture he moves back a little way to listen to the man's message; and in this one second Honor sees her only chance of escape.
With a slow gliding motion she gains the end of the wall, and sees the open square of the old court before her.
Some one may be watching from behind those broken buttresses, she knows; but she is desperate, and has no time to count the chances. With a rapid step she crosses the square, and is almost at the open gateway when a man steps forward and holds her back by the arm.
"Not so fast, miss! Shure ye'd not be for forgetting the masther!"
With a sharp cry of fear she struggles to get free; but she might as well try to fly as to loose her arm from the grip of those grimy fingers.
Surely the steps she heard a little while ago are coming back again—more slowly this time, but still coming! Yes, and it is Brian—she knows it; she cannot be mistaken, and, yielding to a sudden impulse, she calls his name aloud, calls it again and again, in her utter helplessness and misery.
She does not think that he will hear and come to her. She has no hope of help from any quarter, as she looks round upon the dark menacing faces of the men who have gathered so noiselessly and rapidly about her. She is in their power—she realizes that; and, as a Blake of Donaghmore, she expects but little mercy, unless it be granted her for Power Magill's sake.
He has come up to her now, and the men fall back a little at a sign from him.
"Are you mad, Honor?" he asks hoarsely. "Is it your own death or is it mine that you seek this night?"
"Oh, let me go home!" she moaned, looking at him piteously. "If ever you loved me, Power, let me go home!"
But a threatening murmur rises from the men about them.
"If I would trust you to carry our secret back to Donaghmore they would not," he said curtly. "No, no, Honor—there is no turning back for either of us!"
The steps—the slow, heavy tread, as of a man in deep thought—are close at hand now. She can hear them plainly; so does Power, for he pauses and seems almost to hold his breath in the deep stillness that has fallen upon the place.
Through this quiet Honor's despairing cry—"Brian—oh, Brian, come to me!"—rings sharply out.
She hears a shout as if in answer; and the hoarse murmur of threatening voices fills her heart with fear. She has twisted her ankle on the rough stones, and now, when she tries to move, she cannot, so she crouches back against the wall and waits for the help that she is sure is coming in an agony that is fast merging into unconsciousness.
"Honor, where are you? Speak!"
She tries to answer: but her voice has failed her; she can only moan faintly in her great pain.
And clearly, above all the sounds of this terrible night, she hears a man's voice saying sternly:
"Back, Magill! Would yez risk the lives of your friends for the sake of a woman?"
Then comes silence—a great silence—and darkness; and the terror and the pain and the longing for Brian all fade away together.
* * * * *
Fortunately Honor's swoon does not last long. The cold night air revives her, and she opens her eyes to see Brian Beresford kneeling beside her. He had almost stumbled over her in his eager search for her, and at the first glance he thought that she was dead.
Everything is intensely quiet as the girl raises her head from his shoulder and looks round her with terrified eyes. There is not a sound to tell that the place has so lately been filled with armed men.
"Where are they?" she whispers, trembling. "Oh, Brian, if they come back they will kill us both!"
The same thought is in his own mind; but not for worlds would he put it into words. The men fled in a panic, thinking he was not alone; but let them discover that they have only one man to face, and they will soon return and make short work of him.
He knows it well; but what can he do? He cannot leave Honor, and, with his wounded arm, it would be impossible for him to carry her so far as the house. And as he holds her there, her cheeks against his shoulder, her little cold hands in his, he thinks that death itself with her might not be so very terrible after all.
"They will not come back," he tells her—"at least not yet. They will be afraid."
But even as he speaks a stealthy footfall breaks the quiet, and a man's voice says low and guardedly, yet distinct enough for them to hear:
"Have they had time to get to the house, Neil?"
"Troth an' they have, sor—twice over! I'd take my oath they didn't let the grass grow under their feet, once they got free!"—and the man laughs grimly, a low mocking laugh that echoes through the lonely place.
Honor clings more close to Brian, and shivers like one stricken with ague. So far they have not been seen; and the men—Power Magill and his servant—must have passed close to them. But any moment a stir, a heavy breath may betray them.
"If I thought there was a chance of overtaking them, I would follow them even now," Power Magill says fiercely. "To think a fellow like that should have baffled us at the last moment! If it were not for the men's cowardly fear that the police were with him, he couldn't have done it."
"Faith, and that's true for yer honor!"
Very slowly they come back again, talking earnestly. It is evident from what they way that Power Magill has offended his friends by to-night's rashness and, though his companion speaks respectfully there is a veiled threat in his words that Power cannot but feel.
"I would do it over again," Power answers sternly, "if it was my life that I was risking in place of my liberty."
"But the boys don't care to risk their liberty—why should they, the cratures?—even for a beautiful young lady like Miss Honor—Heaven bless her!" the other man says sturdily.
His master retorts angrily; but they are too far off now for their words to be heard; and again silence reigns.
It is long before Brian and Honor dare to move, though the girl is trembling with cold and the man's arm is paining him intensely—longer still before they venture out of their hiding-place.
Honor will never forget that walk up to the house in the chill damp night, the dread of pursuit making her heart throb wildly. Her companion is very silent; and, when he does speak, his voice sounds cold and harsh. More than once she tries to thank him for coming to her help so bravely; but the words die away on her lips. She finds it hard to believe that this man spoke tenderly to her only a little time ago. His very words ring in her ears and serve to make his grim silence more oppressive.
"He is sorry already for having spoken then," she says to herself; "but he need not be. I shall never remind him of them—never!"
They are within sight of the house before she can summon up courage to thank him for coming to her aid.
"It was so brave of you," she adds simply; "for of course you did not know how many you might have to face! I'm afraid I am very stupid—I don't know how to thank you as you deserve."
"No, no," he says hastily, almost impatiently. "Pray do not thank me at all; I deserve no thanks, I assure you! I would have done as much for any woman!"
There is something almost cruel in the way in which he says it, and tears well up in the girl's eyes.
"I know you would," she says, with cold gentleness; "but that does not make the act less brave."
Suddenly he turns on her with unexpected passion.