eak for
him."

"And these are the people we have lived among all our lives!" the girl
says, with a sigh. "Oh, Power, it seems as if it couldn't be true!"

"It's true enough," he answers her, more gently. "The men are maddened
by a sense of their wrongs! They are not prepared to love those who
openly side with their oppressors."

The vehement passion in his voice, the fierce flush on his cheeks,
chill the girl and check the words that rise to her lips.

Why appeal to this man? He is not on their side, but against them. He
loves her, she knows, but does he not love this "cause" to which he is
pledged, body and soul, better than her?

"Well, we must do the best we can," she says after a pause--a lengthy,
ominous pause it has seemed to Honor. "It is to be hoped the poor
fellows will come to their senses in time."

"And meanwhile?" he questions her.

"Meanwhile we must take care of ourselves," the girl answers briefly
and coldly.

"My darling, you don't know what you are talking about--you have been
led away by Launce's boasting. You cannot see your danger as I, who
loves you, see it. Come to me, Honor! Be my wife, and let me take care
of you. I swear you shall never repent it--never!"

For an instant she looks at him, startled; then the color floods her
face, and her eyelids droop.

"As my wife you will be safe and happy--for don't we love each other?"

"Then," she says--and she shivers even in the hot sunshine--"you think
I am not safe here, in my own home?"

"You are not!" he answers impressively.

"Then my father and the boys are not safe either?" she questions more
eagerly.

"The certainly are not safe, Honor. If they had any sense they would
leave the country while they can."

"And yet it is now you would ask me to leave them," she says, almost
disdainfully--"to leave the dear old _pater_ and the boys just when
they need me most? It's little you know of me, Power, or you would
never dream of asking me to do such a thing."

"If you could do any good," he begins; but she interrupts him with a
swift, almost imperious gesture.

"I could do the good that Rooney's wife did him, if ever it should come
to that with us at Donaghmore."

"Honor, why do you think of such things?"

"It's time to think of them," she says wearily, "when they are acted
before our eyes. How can I tell how soon it may be our turn? I said it
was not true when Launce came in and told us that poor Rooney was shot
like a rabbit, be