an. Dangerous she may be--a modern Circe, many of whose admirers
find their way to Kilmainham, but, above and before everything else,
the woman is beautiful. But it is not her face nor her figure, lithe
and lissom for all its ripe maturity, that so holds men's hearts in
thrall. There is a charm about her, a curious magnetic power that is
even more dangerous than her beauty.

"I would not care to see much of your Mrs. Dundas," an old squire once
said, talking of her. "I never knew but one woman who had the same
coaxing, fooling ways with her, and, begorra, sir, she was a demon in
petticoats!"

But that was only the opinion of a blunt old farmer; Launce Blake knows
her a great deal better, or thinks he does. In his own way he is almost
as handsome as she is; a tall fair man, with eyes so dark a gray that
they look black under their thick lashes and a smile as sweet as a
woman's. But, as he sits in Mrs. Dundas's pretty room to-night, he is
not smiling--he has come here from Colonel Frenche's, as his father
guessed he would--he is looking very stern indeed, and "altogether
unmanageable," as Kate Dundas says to herself. It is not the first time
by many that she has seen him in this mood. Launce is not one of her
humble adorers, and perhaps she likes him all the better on that
account.

"I am sure I don't know why you should be so angry," she is saying, in
her pretty soft voice, which has just a touch of the Devonshire accent
in it. "The man is nothing to me; but since he brought a letter from
the poor major's old friend, Major Cregan, I had to be civil to him. I
couldn't--could I, now"--coaxingly--"send him back again?"

Launce listens gravely; it is quite a long speech for her to make--as a
rule, her eyes, her slow sweet smiles, speak for her.

"That sounds very well--and it may be true, as far as it goes--but it
is not all the truth."

"Oh, Launce, how unkind you are!" She is lying back in her chair, the
lamplight falling upon her bare arms, her round white throat, and the
diamond cross that sparkles on her bosom.

Her dress of some soft yellow stuff that shines like silk and drapes
like velvet. She wears no flowers or ornaments of any kind, except the
cross on her breast and some old-fashioned gold pins in her hair.
Launce Blake, as he looks at her, feels the glamour of her beauty
stealing over him like a spell.

His heart is beating furiously; his jealousy and distrust are waning
fast before the passion of his