r before we left home. I have put him in an
alcove adjacent to my dressing-room for the present."

"You have left him there?" He was alarmed.

"Oh, there's no fear. No one ever goes there except Bridget. And I have
locked the alcove. He's fast asleep. He was asleep before I left. The
poor fellow was so worn and weary." Followed details of his appearance
and a recital of his wanderings so far as he had made them known to her.
"And he was so insistent that no one should know, not even Terence."

"Terence must not know," he said gravely.

"You think that too!"

"If Terence knows--well, you will regret it all the days of your life,
Una."

He was so stern, so impressive, that she begged for explanation. He
afforded it. "You would be doing Terence the utmost cruelty if you told
him. You would be compelling him to choose between his honour and
his concern for you. And since he is the very soul of honour, he must
sacrifice you and himself, your happiness and his own, everything that
makes life good for you both, to his duty."

She was aghast, for all that she was far from understanding. But he went
on relentlessly to make his meaning clear, for the sake of O'Moy as much
as for her own--for the sake of the future of these two people who were
perhaps his dearest friends. He saw in what danger of shipwreck their
happiness now stood, and he took the determination of clearly pointing
out to her every shoal in the water through which she must steer her
course.

"Since this has happened, Una, you must be told the whole truth; you
must listen, and, above all, be reasonable. I am Dick's friend, as I am
your own and Terence's. Your father was my best friend, perhaps, and
my gratitude to him is unbounded, as I hope you know. You and Dick are
almost as brother and sister to me. In spite of this--indeed, because of
this, I have prayed for news that Dick was dead."

Her grasp interrupted him, and he felt the tightening clutch of her
hands upon his arm in the gloom.

"I have prayed this for Dick's sake, and more than all for the sake of
your happiness and Terence's. If Dick is taken the choice before Terence
is a tragic one. You will realise it when I tell you that duty forced
him to pledge his word to the Portuguese Government that Dick should be
shot when found."

"Oh!" It was a gasp of horror, of incredulity. She loosed his arm and
drew away from him. "It is infamous! I can't believe it. I can't."

"It is true. I swear it to