iles Calhoun lasts. There'll
be little left for you, Mr. Dyck. That's what troubles me. I tell you
it'd break my heart if that place should be lost to your father and you.
I was born on it. I'd give the best years of the life that's left me to
make sure the old house could stay in the hands of the Calhouns. I say
to you that while I live all I am is yours, fair and foul, good and
bad." He touched his breast with his right hand. "In here is the soul
of Ireland that leps up for the things that matter. There's a
song--but never mind about a song; this is no place for songs. It's a
prison-house, and you're a prisoner charged--"

"Not charged yet, not charged," interrupted Dyck; "but suspected of and
arrested for a crime. I'll fight--before God, I'll fight to the last!
Good-bye, Michael; bring me food and clothes, and send me cold water at
once."

When the door closed softly behind Michael Clones, Dyck sat down on the
bed where many a criminal patriot had lain. He looked round the small
room, bare, unfurnished, severe-terribly severe; he looked at the blank
walls and the barred window, high up; he looked at the floor--it was
discoloured and damp. He reached out and touched it with his hand. He
looked at the solitary chair, the basin and pail, and he shuddered.

"How awful--how awful!" he murmured. "But if it was her father, and if I
killed him"--his head sank low--"if I killed her father!"

"Water, sir."

He looked up. It was the guard with a tin of water and a dipper.

CHAPTER VII. MOTHER AND DAUGHTER

"I don't believe he's guilty, mother."

The girl's fine eyes shone with feeling--with protest, indignation,
anguish. As she spoke, she thrust her head forward with the vigour of
a passionate counsel. Sheila Llyn was a champion who would fight to the
last gasp for any cause she loved.

A few moments before, she had found her mother, horror-stricken, gazing
at a newspaper paragraph sent from Dublin.

Sheila at once thought this to be the cause of her mother's agitation,
and she reached out a hand for it. Her mother hesitated, then handed
the clipping to her. Fortunately it contained no statement save the bare
facts connected with the killing of Erris Boyne, and no reference to
the earlier life of the dead man. It said no more than that Dyck Calhoun
must take his trial at the sessions.

It also stated that Dyck, though he pleaded "not guilty," declared
frankly, through Will McCormick, the lawyer, that he had n