O'Beirne popped up from somewhere, and Darby sneaked off in
silence.

The Colonel disdained to ask what was afoot, but he thought that he
would give Morty a chance of speaking. "Are you looking for your
brother?" he asked suavely.

"I am not," Morty answered, with a gloomy look.

"Nor for The McMurrough?"

"I am not. I am thinking," he added, with a grin, "that he has his
hands full with the young lady."

Colonel John was somewhat startled. "What's the matter?" he asked.

"Oh, two minds in a house. Sorrow a bit more than that. It's no very
new thing in a family," Morty added. And he went out whistling "'Twas
a' for our rightful King." But he went, as the Colonel noted, no
farther than the courtyard, whence he could command the room through
the window. He lounged there, whistling, and now and again peeping.

Suddenly, on the upper floor, Colonel John heard a door open, and the
clamour of a voice raised in anger. It was James's voice. "Tell him?
Curse me if you shall!" Colonel John heard him say. The next moment the
door was sharply closed and he caught no more.

But he had heard enough to quicken his pulses. What was it she wished
to tell him? _Souvent femme varie?_ Was she already seeking to follow
up the hint which she had given him on Bale's behalf? And was the
special surveillance to which he had been subjected for the last two
days aimed at keeping them apart, that she might have no opportunity of
telling him--something?

Colonel John suspected that this might be so. And his heart beat, as
has been hinted, more quickly. At the evening meal he was early in the
room, on the chance that she might appear before the others. But she
did not descend, and the meal proved unpleasant beyond the ordinary,
James drinking more than was good for him, and taking a tone, brutal
and churlish, if not positively hostile. For some reason, the Colonel
reflected, the young man was beginning to lose his fears. Why? What was
he planning? How was he, even if he had no respect for his oath,
thinking to evade that dilemma which ensured his guest's safety?

"Secure as I seem, I must look to myself," Colonel John thought. And he
slept that night with his door bolted and a loaded pistol under his
pillow. Next morning he took care to descend early, on the chance of
seeing Flavia before the others appeared. She was not down: he waited,
and she did not come. But neither did his watchers; and when he had
been in the room five minutes a s