h
sharply--she had made up her mind. "I know what I will do," she said.
"I will tell him all." And she turned to go.

"It's not worth the shoe-leather!" Morty cried after her, letting his
scorn of James be seen.

But she was out of hearing, and when she returned a minute later she
was followed, not by James McMurrough, but by Colonel Sullivan. The
Colonel's face, seen in the full light, had lost the brown of health;
it was thin and peaky, and still bore signs of privation. But he trod
firmly, and his eyes were clear and kind. If he was aware of the
O'Beirnes' embarrassment, his greeting did not betray it.

"I am willing to help if I can," he said. "What is your trouble?"

"Tell him," Flavia said, averting her face.

They told him lamely--they were scarcely less jealous of the honour of
the house than she was--in almost the same words in which they had
broken the news to her. "And the curse of Cromwell on me, but he's
parading up and down now," Morty continued, "and cocking his eye at the
sun-dial whenever he passes, as much as to say, 'Is it coming, you
are?' till the heart's fairly melted in me with the rage!"

"And it's shame on us we let him be!" cried Phelim.

Colonel John did not answer. He was silent even when, under the eyes of
all, the ominous shadow passed again before the entrance gates--came
and went. He was so long silent that Flavia turned to him at last, and
held out her hands. "What shall we do?" she cried--and in that cry she
betrayed her new dependence on him. "Tell us!"

"It is hard to say," Colonel John answered gravely. His face was very
gloomy, and to hide it or his thoughts he turned from them and went to
one of the windows--that very window through which Uncle Ulick and he
had looked at his first coming. He gazed out, not that he might see,
but that he might think unwatched.

They waited, the men expecting little, but glad to be rid of some part
of the burden, Flavia with a growing sense of disappointment. She did
not know for what she had hoped, or what she had thought that he would
do. But she had been confident that he could help; and it seemed that
he could do no more than others. Neither to her, nor to the men, did it
seem as strange as it was that they should turn to him, against whose
guidance they had lately revolted so fiercely.

He came back to them presently, his face sad and depressed. "I will
deal with it," he said--and he sighed. "You can leave it to me. Do
you," he conti