she would
say something, but nothing came from them. She only shook her head
sadly, as if to say: "You understand. Go, and when you come again, it
will be for us to part in peace--at least in peace."

Out in the garden he found her mother. After the first agitated
greeting-agitated on her part, he said: "The story has been told, and
she is now reading--"

He told her the story of the manuscript, and added that Sheila had
carried herself with courage. Presently the woman said to him: "She
never believed you killed Erris Boyne. Well, it may not help the
situation, but I say too, that I do not believe you did. I cannot
understand why you did not deny having killed him."

"I could not deny. In any case, the law punished me for it, and the book
is closed for ever."

"Have you never thought that some one--"

"Yes, I have thought, but who is there? The crowd at the Dublin hotel
where the thing was done were secret, and they would lie the apron off a
bishop. No, there is no light, and, to tell the truth, I care not now."

"But if you are not guilty--it is not too late; there is my girl! If the
real criminal should appear--can you not see?"

The poor woman, distressedly pale, her hair still abundant, her eyes
still bright, her pulses aglow, as they had ever been, made a gesture of
appeal with hands that were worn and thin. She had charm still, in a way
as great as her daughter's.

"I can see--but, Mrs. Llyn, I have no hope. I am a man whom some men
fear--"

"Lord Mallow!" she interjected.

"He does not fear me. Why do you say that?"

"I speak with a woman's intuition. I don't know what he fears, but he
does fear you. You are a son of history; you had a duel with him,
and beat him; you have always beaten him, even here where he has been
supreme as governor--from first to last, you have beaten him."

"I hope I shall be even with him at the last--at the very last," was
Dyck Calhoun's reply. "We were made to be foes. We were from the first.
I felt it when I saw him at Playmore. Nothing has changed since then. He
will try to destroy me here, but I will see it through. I will try and
turn his rapier-points. I will not be the target of his arrows without
making some play against him. The man is a fool. I could help him here,
but he will have none of it, and he is running great risks. He has been
warned that the Maroons are restive, that the black slaves will rise if
the Maroons have any initial success, and he will list