you did not send the
young woman to sea with the old ones. But I'm thinking you'd not be
liking to be without her, Colonel?"

Colonel John turned surprisingly red: perhaps he did not quite know
why. "We will leave her out of the question, sir," he said haughtily.
"Or--that reminds me! That reminds me," he continued, with increasing
sternness. "You question my right to bid you begone----"

"By G--d, I do!" Asgill cried, with zest. He was beginning to enjoy
himself.

"But you forget, I think, another little matter in the past that is
known to me--and that you would not like disclosed, I believe, sir."

"You seem to have been raking things up, Colonel."

"One must deal with a rogue according to his roguery," Colonel John
retorted.

Asgill's face grew dark. This was taking the buttons off with a
vengeance. He made a movement, but restrained himself. "You don't mince
matters," he said.

"I do not."

"You may be finding it an unfortunate policy before long," Asgill said
between his teeth. He was moved at last, angered, perhaps apprehensive
of what was coming.

"Maybe, sir," Colonel John returned, "maybe. But in the meantime let me
remind you that your tricks as a horsedealer would not go far to
recommend you as a guest to my kinswoman."

"Oh?"

"Who shall assuredly hear who seized her mare if you persist in forcing
your company upon her."

"Upon her?" Asgill repeated, in a peculiar tone. "I see."

Colonel John reddened. "You know now," he said. "And if you
persist----"

"You will tell her," Asgill took him up, "that I--shall I say--abducted
her mare?"

"I shall tell her without hesitation."

"Or scruple?"

Colonel Sullivan glowered at him, but did not answer.

Asgill laughed a laugh of honest contempt. "And she," he said, "will
not believe you if you swear it a score of times! Try, sir! Try! You
will injure yourself, you will not injure me. Why, man," he continued,
in a tone of unmeasured scorn, "you are duller than I thought you were!
The ice is still in your wits and the fog in your brain. I thought,
when I heard what you had done, that you were the man for Kerry!
But----"

"What is it? What's this?"

The speaker was James McMurrough, who had come from the house in search
of the kinsman he dared not suffer out of his sight. He had approached
unnoticed, and his churlish tone showed that what he had overheard was
not to his liking. But Asgill supposed that James's ill-humour was
directed against