le the O'Beirnes and their fellows grinned their
open-mouthed admiration of the bear-tamer; and by-and-by, concluding
the fun was at an end, they went out one by one, until the two men were
left together.

They sat some way apart, Payton brooding savagely, with his eyes on the
table, Asgill toying with the things before him and from time to time
glancing at the other. Each saw the prize clear before him; each saw
the other in the way and wondered how he could best brush him from it.
Payton cared for the girl herself, only as a toy that had caught his
fancy; but he was sunk in debt, and his mouth watered for her
possessions. Asgill cared, as has been said, little or nothing for the
inheritance, but he swore that the other man should never live to
possess the woman. "It is a pity," Payton meditated, "for, with his
aid, I could take the girl, willing or unwilling. She'd not be the
first Irish girl who has gone to her marriage across the pommel!" While
Asgill reflected that if he could find Payton alone on a dark night it
would not be his small-sword would help him or his four troopers would
find him! But it must not be at Morristown.

Each owned, with reluctance, that the other had advantages. Asgill was
Irish, and known to Flavia, and had come to be favoured by her. But
Payton, though English, was the younger, the handsomer, the better
born, and, in his braggart fashion, the better bred. Both were
Protestants; but if Asgill was the cleverer, Payton was an officer and
a gentleman. The latter flattered himself that, given a little time, he
would win, if not by favour, still by force or fraud. But, could he
have looked into Asgill's heart, he would have trembled, perhaps he
would have drawn back. For he would have known that, while Irish bogs
were deep and Irish pikes were sharp, his life would not be worth one
week's purchase if he wronged this girl. Bad man as Asgill was, his
love was of no common kind, even as the man was no common man.

And he suspected the other; and he shook--ay, so that the table against
which he leant trembled--with rage at the thought that Payton might
offer the girl some rudeness. The suspicion weighed so heavily on him
that he was fixed to see the other to his room that night. When Payton
rose to go, he rose also; and when, by chance, Payton sat down again,
he sat down also, with a look that betrayed his thoughts. At once the
Englishman understood; and thenceforth they sat with frowning faces,