te, so veil it that this insolent Englishman, this
bully of the conquering race, might not perceive it? That were worth so
much that her own life, on this summer morning, seemed a small price to
pay for it.

But, alas! she could not purchase it with her life. Only in fairy tales
can the woman pass for the man, and Doris receive in her tender bosom
the thrust intended for the sterner breast. Then how? How could they
shun at least open disgrace, open dishonour? For it needed but a glance
at her brother's pallid face and wandering eye to assure her that,
brought to the test, he would flinch; that, brought to the field, he
would prove unequal even to the task of cloaking his fears.

She sickened at the thought, and her eyes grew hard. Was this the man
in whom she had believed? And when, presently, he turned on his side
and hid his face in the pillow and groaned, she had small pity to spare
for him. "Are you not well?" she asked.

"Can't you be seeing?" he answered fractiously; but for very shame he
could not face her eyes. "Cannot you be seeing I am not fit to get up,
let alone be meeting that devil? See how my hand shakes!"

"What is to be done, then?"

He cursed Payton thrice in a frenzy of rage. He beat the pillow with
his fist.

"That does no good," she said.

"I believe you want to kill me!" he retorted, with childish passion. "I
believe you want to see me dead! Why can't you be managing your own
affairs, without--without----Oh, my God!" And then, in a dreadful
voice, "My God, I shall be dead to-night! I shall be dead to-night! And
you care nothing!"

He hid unmanly tears on his pillow, while she looked at the wall, pale
to the lips and cut to the heart. Her worst misgivings, even those
nightmare fears which haunt the dawn, had not pictured a thing so mean
as this, a heart so low, a spirit so poor. And this was her brother,
her idol, the last of the McMurroughs of Morristown, he to whom she had
fondly looked to revive the glories of the race! Truly she had not
understood him, or others. She had been blind indeed, blind, blind!

She had spoken to Luke Asgill the night before. He guessed, if he did
not know the worst, and he would help her, she believed. But for that
she would have turned, as her thoughts did turn, to Colonel John. But
he lay prostrate, and, if she could have brought herself to go to him,
he was in no state to give aid. The O'Beirnes were out of the question;
she could not tell them. Youth has