s rose above
the level of the platform. As The McMurrough stepped on to the latter
from the path, he was in time to see her skirt vanishing. He saw no
more. But his suspicions were aroused. He strode across the face of the
Tower, turned the corner, and came on her in the act of putting the key
in the lock.

"What are you doing?" he cried, in a terrible voice. "Are you mad?"

She did not answer, but neither did he pause for her answer. The
imminence of the peril, the thought that the man whom he had so deeply
wronged, and who knew him for the perjured thing he was, might in
another minute be free--free to take what steps he pleased, free to
avenge himself and punish his foes, rose up before him, and he thrust
her roughly from the door. The key, not yet turned, came away in her
hand, and he tried to snatch it from her.

"Give it me!" he cried. "Do you hear? Give it me!"

"I will not!" she cried. "No!"

"Give it up, I say!" he retorted. And this time he made good his hold
on her wrist. He tried to force the key from her. "Let it go!" he
panted, "or I shall hurt you!"

But he made a great mistake if he thought that he could coerce Flavia
in that way. Her fingers only closed more tightly on the key. "Never!"
she cried, struggling with him. "Never! I am going to let him out!"

"You coward!" a voice cried through the door. "Coward! Coward!" There
was a sound of drumming on the door.

But Colonel John's voice and his blows were powerless to help, as
James, in a frenzy of rage and alarm, gripped the girl's wrist, and
twisted it. "Let it go! Let it go, you fool!" he cried brutally, "or I
will break your arm!"

Her face turned white with pain, but for a moment she endured in
silence. Then a shriek escaped her.

It was answered instantly. Neither he nor she had had eyes for aught
but one another; and the hand that fell, and fell heavily, on James's
shoulder was as unexpected as a thunderbolt.

"By Heaven, man," a voice cried in his ear. "Are you mad? Or is this
the way you treat women in Kerry? Let the lady go! Let her go, I say!"

The command was needless, for at the first sound of the voice James had
fallen back with a curse, and Flavia, grasping her bruised wrist with
her other hand, reeled for support against the Tower wall. For a moment
no one spoke. Then James, with scarcely a look at Payton--for he it
was--bade her come away with him. "If you are not mad," he growled,
"you'll have a care! You'll have a care, a