next autumn. The
pastures will be saturated, and sheep would perish with foot-rot
and fluke. Then money must be laid out again upon it, just that Mr.
Carroll may again wreak his vengeance." After that there was silence,
for the children felt that not a word could be spoken which would
comfort their father.

When they sat down to dinner, Mr. Jones asked after Florian. "He's
not well," said Edith.

"Florian not well! So there's another misfortune."

"His ill-health is rather ill-humour. Biddy will take care of him,
father."

"I do not choose that he should be looked after by Biddy in solitude.
I suppose that somebody has been teasing him."

"No, father," said Edith, positively.

"Has anyone been speaking to him about his religion?"

"Not a word," said Edith. Then she told herself that to hold her
tongue at the present moment would be cowardly. "Florian, father, has
misbehaved himself, and has gone away cross. I would leave him, if I
were you, till to-morrow."

"I know there is ill-will against him," said the father. All this was
ill-judged on behalf of Mr. Jones. Peter, the old butler, who had
lived in the family, was in the room. Peter, of course, was a Roman
Catholic, and, though he was as true as steel, it could not but be
felt that in this absurd contest he was on the side of the "young
masther."

Down in the kitchen the conversion of the "young masther" to the true
religion was a great affair, and Mr. Frank and the young ladies were
looked upon as hard-hearted and cruel, because they stood in the way
of this act of grace. Nothing more was said about Florian that night.

CHAPTER II.

THE MAN IN THE MASK.

Edith, before she went to bed that night, crept up to her brother's
bedroom and seated herself on the bedside. It was a little room which
Florian occupied alone, and lay at the back of the house, next to
that in which Peter slept. Here, as she sat on the bed, she could see
by a glance that young Florian feigned to be asleep.

"Flory, you are pretending to be asleep." Flory uttered a short
snore,--or rather snort, for he was not a good actor. "You may as
well wake up, because otherwise I shall shake you."

"Why am I to be shaked up in bed?"

"Because I want to speak to you."

"Why am I to be made to speak when I want to sleep?"

"Papa has been talking about you downstairs. He has come home from
Ballintubber, very tired and very unhappy, and he thinks you have
been made to go to bed wit