turned to Colonel John. Her eyes met his. They asked him a defiant
question: they challenged the answer.

"I do not understand," he replied, taken by surprise. But indeed he did
understand only too well. "Is it a game?"

The men were pinning the white shreds on their coats above their
hearts--even her brother, obedient for once. But at that word they
turned as one man to him, turned flushed, frowning faces and passionate
eyes on him. But Flavia was before them; excitement had carried her
farther than she had meant to go, yet prudence had not quite left her.
"Yes, a game!" she cried, laughing, a note too high. "Don't you know
the Lady's Kerchief?"

"No," he said soberly; he was even a little out of countenance.

"Then no more of it," Uncle Ulick cried, interposing, with a ring of
authority in his voice. "For my part, I'm for bed. Bed! We're all
children, bedad, and as fond of a frolic! And I'm thinking I'm the
worst. The lights, Darby, the lights, and pleasant dreams to you! After
all--

The spoke that is to-day on top,
To-morrow's on the ground.

Sure, and I'll swear that's true!"

"And no treason!" The McMurrough answered him, with a grin. "Eh,
Asgill?"

And so between them they removed Colonel John's last doubt--if he had
one.

CHAPTER IX

EARLY RISERS

Colonel Sullivan had returned from Tralee in high spirits. He had
succeeded beyond his hopes in the task he had set himself to perform,
and he counted with confidence on gaining by that means a sound footing
and a firm influence in the house. But as he sat in his room that
evening, staring at the rushlight, with the night silent about him, he
feared, nay, he almost knew, that his success came too late. Something
had happened behind his back, some crisis, some event; and that which
he had done was as if it were undone, and that which he had gained
availed nothing.

It was plain--whatever was obscure--that the play of the Lady's
Kerchief was a cover for matter more serious. Those who had taken part
in it had scarcely deigned to pretend. Colonel John had been duller
than the dullest if he had not seen in the white shreds for which the
men had scrambled, and which they had affixed with passion to their
coats, the white Cockade of the Pretender; or found in Uncle Ulick's
couplet--uttered while in a careless fashion he affected disguise,

The spoke that is to-day on top,
To-morrow's on the ground,

one of those catchwords whi