but he fancied--she kept her face averted--that she
shivered.

"While you have been away, something has happened," he continued. After
all, it was perhaps as well, he reflected, that Payton had come. His
coming, even if Flavia did not encounter him, would divert her
thoughts, would suggest an external peril, would prevent her dwelling
too long or too fancifully on that room in the Tower, and on the man
who famished there. She hated the Colonel, Asgill believed. She had
hated him, he was sure. But how long would she continue to hate him in
these circumstances? How long if she learned what were the Colonel's
feelings towards her? "An unwelcome guest has come," he continued
glibly, "and one that'll be giving trouble, I'm fearing."

"A guest?" Flavia repeated in astonishment. She halted. What time for
guests was this? "And unwelcome?" she added. "Who is it?"

"An English officer," Asgill explained, "from Tralee. He is saying that
the Castle has heard something, and has sent him here to look about
him."

Naturally the danger seemed greater to the two than to Asgill, who knew
his man. Words of dismay broke from Flavia and O'Beirne. "From Tralee?"
she cried. "And an English officer? Good heavens! Do you know him?"

"I do," Asgill answered confidently. "And, believe me or no, I can
manage him." He began to appreciate this opportunity of showing himself
the master of the position. "I hold him, like that, not the least doubt
of it; but the less we'll be doing for him the sooner he'll be going,
and the safer we'll be! I would not be so bold as to advise," he
continued diffidently, "but I'm thinking it would be no worse if you
left him to be entertained by the men."

"I will!" she cried, embracing the idea. "Why should I be wanting to
see him?"

"Then I think he'll be ordering his horse to-morrow!"

"I wish he were gone now!" she cried.

"Ah, so do I!" he replied, from his heart.

"I will go in through the garden," she said.

He assented; it was to that point he had been moving. She turned aside,
and for a moment he bent to the temptation to go with her. Since the
day on which he had voluntarily left the house at the Colonel's
dictation he had made progress in her favour. He was sure that he had
come closer to her--that she had begun not only to suffer his company,
but to suffer it willingly. And here, as she passed through the
darkling garden under the solid blackness of the yews, was an
opportunity of making a furth