elt herself weakening again, but summoned all her resolution and
stood true to her purpose.

'I can bear it,' she said. 'I must! Promise me. Harry, the troopers are
coming--your promise!'

'I promise.' He held her a moment caught to his heart, they exchanged a
long kiss, and she slipped from him and into the house.

CHAPTER XXI.

A MINUTE later, when Casey rode up out of the darkness, Harry was sitting
alone by the window.

'You've seen nothing?' he said.

Divil a see,' replied the trooper. 'It's sartin to me he ain't within
fifty moiles av us this blessed minute.'

'It doesn't seem likely he'd hang round here, does it?'

'The man ud be twin idyits what ud do it, knowin' we'd be sartin sure to
nab him, Misther Hardy.'

Harry was not disposed to smile, indeed he scarcely heeded Casey's words;
he thought he detected a faint sound of weeping within the house, and his
heart was filled with a passionate longing to stand by his dear love in
defiance of everything. Casey, looking down upon him, noted the
convulsive movements of his clenched hands, and said with a laugh:

'Sure, 'twould be sorrer an' torinint fer that same Shine if you laid
thim hands on him now, me boy.'

Harry started to his feet and commenced to fondle the trooper's horse,
fearing to follow the train of thought that had possessed him lest he
should betray himself. Shortly after Sergeant Monk returned.

'No go,' he said. 'Anything turned up here, Casey?'

'Niver a shmell av anythin', sor,' answered the trooper.

'Well, we can raise this siege, Hardy. That boy was mistaken, sure
enough.'

'If he wasn't having a game with us,' answered Harry.

'Urn, yes; that's likely enough among these young heathens of Waddy. But
Downy will be here again in the morning; we'll see what he makes of it.'

Harry followed the police as they rode away, and returned slowly to his
home. His anxiety for Chris's sake, and his profound sympathy for her,
did not serve to quell the wild elation dancing in his veins, the
triumphal spirit awakened by the knowledge of her love and fired by her
kisses.

Chris, sitting alone in the house, her face buried in her hands, felt,
too, something of this exultation; but she nerved herself to look into
the future, and saw it grim and starless. She saw herself the daughter of
the convicted thief, the thief who had only narrowly escaped having to
stand his trial for murdering her lover; the thief who had shifted the
burden of hi