fraid of her in this mood.

"You must kill him!" she repeated.

"We'll talk of that," he said, "when we see him."

"You must kill him!" the girl repeated passionately. "Or I will! If you
are a man, if you are an Irishman, if you are a Sullivan, kill him, the
shame of your race! Or I will!"

"If he had been on our side," Uncle Ulick answered soberly, "instead of
against us, I'm thinking we should have done better."

The girl drew in her breath sharply, pierced to the quick by the
thought. Simultaneously the big man started, but for another reason.
His eyes were on the window, and they saw a sight which his mind
declined to believe. Two men had entered the courtyard--had entered
with astonishing, with petrifying nonchalance, as it seemed to him. For
the first was Colonel Sullivan. The second--but the second slunk at the
heels of the first with a hang-dog air--was James McMurrough.

Fortunately Flavia, whose eyes were glooming on the cold hearth and the
extinct ashes, fit image of her dead hopes, had her back to the
casement. Uncle Ulick rose. His thoughts came with a shock against the
possibility that Colonel John had the garrison of Tralee at his back!
But, although The McMurrough had all the appearance of a prisoner,
Ulick thrust away the notion as soon as it occurred. To clear his mind,
he looked to see how the men engaged in getting out the powder were
taking it. They had ceased to work, and were staring with all their
eyes. Something in their bearing and their attitudes told Uncle Ulick
that the notion which had occurred to him had occurred to them, and
that they were prepared to run at the least alarm.

"His blood be on his own head!" he muttered. But he did not say it in
the tone of a man who meant it.

"Amen!" she cried, her back still turned to the window, her eyes
brooding on the cold hearth. The words fell in with her thoughts.

By this time Colonel Sullivan was within four paces of the door. In a
handturn he would be in the room, he would be actually in the girl's
presence--and Uncle Ulick shrank from the scene which must follow.
Colonel John was, indeed, and plainly, running on his fate. Already the
O'Beirnes, awakening from their trance of astonishment, were closing in
behind him with grim faces; and short of the garrison of Tralee the big
man saw no help for him; well-nigh--so strongly did even he feel on the
matter--he desired none. But Flavia must have no part in it. In God's
name, let the girl