e. "You can't get her without
me; nor at all, at all, but on my terms! It would be a fine thing for
you, no doubt, if you could sneak round her behind my back! Don't I
know you'd be all for old Sir Michael's will then, and I might die in a
gutter, for you! But an egg, and an egg's fair sharing."

"Have I said it was any other?" Asgill asked gloomily.

"The old place is mine, and I'm minded to keep it."

"And if any other marries her," Asgill said quietly, "he will want her
rights."

"Well, and do you think," the younger man answered in his ugliest
manner, "that if it weren't for that small fact, Mister Asgill----"

"And the small fact," Asgill struck in, "that before your grandfather
died I lent you a clear five hundred, and I'm to take that, that's my
own already, in quittance of all!"

"Well, and wasn't it that same I'm saying?" The McMurrough retorted.
"If it weren't for that, and the bargain we've struck, d'you think that
I'd be letting my sister and a McMurrough look at the likes of you? No,
not in as many Midsummer Days as are between this and world without
end!"

The look Asgill shot at him would have made a wiser man tremble. But
The McMurrough knew the strength of his position.

"And if I were to tell her?" Asgill said slowly.

"What?"

"That we've made a bargain about her."

"It's the last strand of hope you'd be breaking, my man," the younger
man answered briskly. "For you'd lose my help, and she'd not believe
you--though every priest in Douai backed your word!"

Asgill knew that that was true, and though his face grew dark he
changed his tone. "Enough said," he replied pacifically. "Where'll we
be if we quarrel? You want the old place that is yours by right. And I
want--your sister." He swallowed something as he named her; even his
tone was different. "'Tis one and one. That's all."

"And you're the one who wants the most," James replied cunningly.
"Asgill, my man, you'd give your soul for her, I'm thinking."

"I would."

"You would, I believe. By G--d," he continued, with a leer, "you're
that fond of her I'll have to look to her! Hang me, my friend, if I let
her be alone with you after this. Safe bind, safe find. Women and fruit
are easily bruised."

Asgill rose slowly to his feet. "You scoundrel!" he said in a low tone.
And it was only when The McMurrough, surprised by his movement, turned
to him, that the young man saw that his face was black with
passion--saw, indeed, a face so menac