her--glowed before her.
How her mother would have cared for and tended, and worshipped a man
even as the one lying riddled on that bed of suffering! All the best in
Angela was from her mother. All the resolute fighting quality was from
her father. She would use both now in defence of the wounded man. She
would tend him and care for him, and see that no harm came to him.

She was roused from her self-searching thoughts by the doctor's voice
and the touch of his hand.

"Good-bye for the present, Miss Kingsnorth. Sure it's in good hands I'm
lavin' him. But for you he'd be lyin' in the black jail with old Doctor
Costello glarin' down at him with his gimlet eyes, I wouldn't wish a
dog that. Faith, I've known Costello to open a wound 'just to see if it
was healthy,' sez he, an' the patient screamin' 'Holy murther!' all the
while, and old 'Cos' leerin' down at him and sayin': 'Does it hurt? Go
on now, does it? Well, we'll thry this one and see if that does, too,'
and in 'ud go the lance again. I tell ye it's the Christian he is!" He
stopped abruptly. "How me tongue runs on. 'Talkative McGinnis' is what
the disrespectful ones call me--I'll run in after eight and mebbe I'll
bleed him a little and give him something'll make him slape like a top
till mornin'. Good-bye to yez, for the present," and the kindly, plump
little man hurried out with the faint echo of a tune whistling through
his lips.

Angela sat down at a little distance from the sickbed and watched the
wounded man. His face was drawn with pain. His eyes were closed. But he
was not sleeping. His fingers locked and unlocked. His lips moved He
opened his eyes and looked at her.

"You need not stay here," he said.

"Would you rather I didn't?" asked Angela, rising.

"Why did you bring me here?"

"To make sure your wounds were attended to."

"Your brother is a landlord--'Kingsnorth--the absentee landlord,' we
used to call your father as children. And I'm in his son's house. I'd
betther be in jail than here."

"You mustn't think that."

"You've brought me here to humiliate me--to humiliate me!"

"No. To care for you. To protect you."

"Protect me?"

"If I can."

"That's strange."

"I heard you speak to-day."

"You did?"

"I did."

"I'm glad of that."

"So am I."

"Pity your brother wasn't there too."

"It was--a great pity."

"Here's one that Dublin Castle and the English government can't
frighten. I'll serve my time in prisons when I'm well e