antagonists in
this house, and the antagonism had lasted over many years. But no
petulant word had ever broken down the barrier of courtesy between them:
each knew the other to be a gentleman.

"Father Halloran," said the Squire gravely, "I will confess to you that I
have been tempted. If I could honestly have spared the lad--"

"I know," said the priest, and nodded while Mr. a Cleeve seemed to search
for a word. "If any sacrifice of your own could stand for payment, you
could have offered it, sir."

"What I fear most is that it may kill his mother." The Squire said it
musingly, but his voice held a question.

"She will suffer." The priest pondered his opinion as he gave it, and his
words came irregularly by twos and threes. "It may be hard--for some
while--to make her see the--the necessity. Women fight for their own by
instinct--right or wrong, they do not ask themselves. If you reason, they
will seize upon any sophistry to confute you--to persuade themselves.
Doubtless the instinct comes from God; but to men, sometimes, it makes
them seem quite unscrupulous."

"We have built much upon Walter. If our hopes have come down with a
crash, we must rebuild, and build them better. I think that, for the
future, you and I must consult one another and make allowances.
The fact is, I am asking you--as it were--to make terms with me over the
lad. 'A house divided,' you know. . . Let us have an end of divisions.
I am feeling terribly old to-night."

The priest met his gaze frankly, and had half extended his hand, when a
sudden sound arrested him--a sound at which the eyes of both men widened
with surprise and their lips were parted--the sharp report of a gun.
Not until it shattered the silence of the woods around Cleeve Court could
you have been aware how deep the silence had lain. Its echoes banged from
side to side of the valley, and in the midst of their reverberation a
second gun rang out.

"The mischief!" exclaimed the Squire. "That means poachers, or I'm a
Dutchman. Macklin's in trouble. Will you come?" He stepped quickly to
the door. "Where did you fix the sound? Somewhere up the valley, near
the White Rock, eh?"

Father Halloran's face was white as a ghost's. "It--it was outside the
house," he stammered.

"Outside? What the deuce--Of course it was outside!" He paused, and
seemed to read the priest's thought. "Oh, for God's sake, man--"
Hurrying into the passage, and along it to the hall,