something in it
that struck his young mind with awe. There was the man in the mask
tendering to him the oath upon the cross; and there had been Pat
Carroll assuring him of that man's wrath. Then there had come the
other stranger, speaking out angrily, and promising to him all evil,
were he to divulge a word.

Nevertheless, his conscience was so strong within him, that when he
reached the Castle he had almost made up his mind to tell his father
everything. But just as he was about to enter the Lodge gate, he was
touched on the arm by a female. "Master Florian," said the female,
"we is all in your hands." It was now dark night, and he could
not even see the woman's face. She seemed indeed to keep her face
covered, and yet he could see the gleam of her eyes. "You're one of
us now, Master Florian."

"I'm a Catholic, if you mean that."

"What else should I main? Would ye be unthrue to your own people?
Do ye know what would happen you if ye commit such a sin as that? I
tould them up there that you'd never bring down hell fire upon yer
head, by such a deed as that. It isn't what ye can do to him he'll
mind, I said, but the anger o' the Blessed Virgin. Worn't it thrue
for me what I said, Master Florian?" She held him in the dark, and he
could see the glimmer of her eyes, and hear the whisper of her voice,
and she frightened him with the fear of the world to come. As he
made his way up to the hall door, it was not the dread of the man in
the mask, so much as the fear inspired by this woman which made him
resolve that, come what come might, he must stick to the lie which he
had told.

After breakfast the next morning, his father summoned him into
his room. "Now," said Flory to himself, as he followed his father
trembling,--"now must I be true." By this he meant that he must be
true to his co-conspirators. If he were false to them, he would have
to incur the anger of the Blessed Virgin. How this should be made
to fall upon him, he did not in the least understand; but he did
understand that the Virgin as he had thought her, should be kind, and
mild, and gracious. He had never stopped to think whether the curse
as uttered by the woman, might or might not be true. Of loyalty to
his father he had thought much; but now he believed that it behoved
him to think more of loyalty to the Virgin, as defined by the woman
in the dark.

He followed his father into the magistrates' room, leaving his
brother and two sisters in the parlour