, and bent over the hideous face with a
grim satisfaction.

"My good friend Delaney," he muttered, "you will own that I have kept my
word. If ever we meet again, I think I shall know you. _Au revoir_," and
he passed on.

I need not go through the congratulatory scene, nor describe how Kate
blushed as they complimented her on her nerve. Fortunately for her, she
had seen nothing, though she had heard all. Just as we were sitting down
to supper, which Fritz prepared with his usual stolid coolness, and when
Kate was about to leave us, for she needed rest, we remarked the
attorney hovering about us with an exultation on his face yet more
servile and repulsive than its late abject terror.

"Mrs. Carew," said Mohun, "if you have quite done with your _protege_, I
think we'll send him down stairs. Give him something to eat, Fritz; not
with the soldiers, though; and let some one take him home as soon as
it's light. If you say one word, sir, I'll have you turned out _now_."

Mr. Kelly crept out of the room, almost as frightened as he had been two
hours before.

The supper was more cheerful than the dinner, though there was a certain
constraint on the party, who were not all so seasoned as their host.
_He_ was in unusual spirits; so much so that Clontarf confided to a
cornet, his particular friend, that "it was a pity the colonel could
not have such a bear-fight once a fortnight, it put him into such a
charming humor."

We had nearly finished when, from the road outside, there came a
prolonged ear-piercing wail, that made the window-panes tremble. I have
never heard any earthly sound at once so expressive of utter despair,
and appealing to heaven or hell for vengeance.

We all started, and set down our glasses; but Mohun finished his slowly,
savoring like a connoisseur the rich Burgundy.

"It is the wild Irish women keening over their dead," he remarked, with
perfect unconcern. "They'll have more to howl for before I have done
with them. I shall go round with the police to-morrow and pick up the
stragglers. Your men are too good for such work, Harding. There are
several too hard hit to go far, and my hand-writing is pretty legible."

The stout soldier to whom he spoke bent his head in assent, but with
rather a queer expression on his honest face.

"Gad!" he said, "you do your work cleanly, Mohun."

"It is the best way, and the shortest in the end," was the reply; and so
the matter dropped.

The Dragoons left us befor