e they could gain the outer door.

'Are they really retiring?' whispered Walpole.

'Yes; they seem to have suffered heavily.'

'Would you not give them one shot at parting--that carbine is charged?'
asked he anxiously.

'Not for worlds,' said she; 'savage as they are, it would be ruin to break
faith with them.'

'Give me a pistol, my left hand is all right.' Though he tried to speak
with calmness, the agony of pain he was suffering so overcame him that he
leaned his head down, and rested it on her shoulder.

'My poor, poor fellow,' said she tenderly, 'I would not for the world that
this had happened.'

'They're gone, Miss Kate, they've passed out at the big gate, and they're
off,' whispered old Mathew, as he stood trembling behind her.

'Here, call some one, and help this gentleman up the stairs, and get a
mattress down on the floor at once; send off a messenger, Sally, for Doctor
Tobin. He can take the car that came this evening, and let him make what
haste he can.'

'Is he wounded?' said Nina, as they laid him down on the floor. Walpole
tried to smile and say something, but no sound came forth.

'My own dear, dear Cecil,' whispered Nina, as she knelt and kissed his
hand, 'tell me it is not dangerous.' He had fainted.

CHAPTER XI

WHAT THE PAPERS SAID OF IT

The wounded man had just fallen into a first sleep after his disaster, when
the press of the capital was already proclaiming throughout the land the
attack and search for arms at Kilgobbin Castle. In the National papers a
very few lines were devoted to the event; indeed, their tone was one of
party sneer at the importance given by their contemporaries to a very
ordinary incident. 'Is there,' asked the _Convicted Felon_, 'anything very
strange or new in the fact that Irishmen have determined to be armed? Is
English legislation in this country so marked by justice, clemency, and
generosity that the people of Ireland prefer to submit their lives and
fortunes to its sway, to trusting what brave men alone trust in--their
fearlessness and their daring? What is there, then, so remarkable in the
repairing to Mr. Kearney's house for a loan of those weapons of which his
family for several generations have forgotten the use?' In the Government
journals the story of the attack was headed, 'Attack on Kilgobbin Castle.
Heroic resistance by a young lady'; in which Kate Kearney's conduct was
described in colours of extravagant eulogy. She was alternately Joa