When he had done, "That"s a strange story," Asgill said quietly, "if it"s true."
"True?" Payton rejoined, laying his hand on a gla.s.s and speaking in a towering rage. "d.a.m.n you, you know it"s true!"
"I know nothing about it," Asgill replied, with the utmost coolness.
"Nothing?"
"And for a good reason. Sure, and I"m the last person they would be likely to tell it to!"
"And you were not a party to it?" Payton cried.
"Why should I be?" Asgill rejoined, calmly cutting a slice of bread.
"What have I to gain by robbing the young lady of her inheritance? I"d be more likely to lose by it than gain."
"Lose by it? Why?"
"That is my affair," Asgill answered. And he hummed:
They tried put the comether on Judy McBain: One, two, three, one, two, three!
Cotter and crowder and Paddy O"Hea; For who but she"s owner of Ballymacshane?
He made his meaning so clear, and pointed it so audaciously before them all, that Payton, after scowling at him for some seconds with his hand on a gla.s.s as if he meant to throw it, dropped his eyes and his hand and fell into a gloomy study. He could not but own the weight of the other"s argument. If Asgill was a pretender to the heiress"s hand--and Payton did not doubt this--the last thought in his mind would be to divest her of her property.
Asgill read his thoughts, and presently, "I hope the wound is not serious?" he said.
"He is not wounded," the Major answered curtly. A few minutes before he would have flown out at the other; now he took the thrust quietly. He was thinking. Meanwhile the O"Beirnes and their fellows grinned their open-mouthed admiration of the bear-tamer; and by-and-by, concluding the fun was at an end, they went out one by one, until the two men were left together.
They sat some way apart, Payton brooding savagely, with his eyes on the table, Asgill toying with the things before him and from time to time glancing at the other. Each saw the prize clear before him; each saw the other in the way and wondered how he could best brush him from it.
Payton cared for the girl herself, only as a toy that had caught his fancy; but he was sunk in debt, and his mouth watered for her possessions. Asgill cared, as has been said, little or nothing for the inheritance, but he swore that the other man should never live to possess the woman. "It is a pity," Payton meditated, "for, with his aid, I could take the girl, willing or unwilling. She"d not be the first Irish girl who has gone to her marriage across the pommel!" While Asgill reflected that if he could find Payton alone on a dark night it would not be his small-sword would help him or his four troopers would find him! But it must not be at Morristown.
Each owned, with reluctance, that the other had advantages. Asgill was Irish, and known to Flavia, and had come to be favoured by her. But Payton, though English, was the younger, the handsomer, the better born, and, in his braggart fashion, the better bred. Both were Protestants; but if Asgill was the cleverer, Payton was an officer and a gentleman. The latter flattered himself that, given a little time, he would win, if not by favour, still by force or fraud. But, could he have looked into Asgill"s heart, he would have trembled, perhaps he would have drawn back. For he would have known that, while Irish bogs were deep and Irish pikes were sharp, his life would not be worth one week"s purchase if he wronged this girl. Bad man as Asgill was, his love was of no common kind, even as the man was no common man.
And he suspected the other; and he shook--ay, so that the table against which he leant trembled--with rage at the thought that Payton might offer the girl some rudeness. The suspicion weighed so heavily on him that he was fixed to see the other to his room that night. When Payton rose to go, he rose also; and when, by chance, Payton sat down again, he sat down also, with a look that betrayed his thoughts. At once the Englishman understood; and thenceforth they sat with frowning faces, each thinking more intently than before how he might thrust the other from his path; each more certain, with every moment, that, the other removed, his path to the goal was clear and open. Neither gave a thought to Colonel Sullivan, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion upstairs: Payton, because the Colonel seemed to him a middle-aged man, plain and grey; and Asgill, because a more immediate and pressing jealousy had thrust his mistrust of the Colonel from his mind.
There was claret on the table, and the Major, dull and bored, and resenting the other"s vigilance, did not spare it. When he rose to his feet to retire he was heated and flushed, but not drunk. "Where"s that young cub?" he asked, breaking the silence.
Asgill shrugged his shoulders. "I can"t hope to fill his place," he said with a smooth smile. "But I will be doing the honours as well as I can."
"You are d----d officious, it seems to me," Payton growled. And then, more loudly, "I am going to bed," he said.
"In his absence," Asgill answered, with mock politeness, "I will have the honour of lighting you."
"You needn"t trouble."
"Faith, and it"s no trouble at all," Asgill replied in the same tone.
And, taking two of the candles from the table, he preceded the Englishman up the stairs.
The gradual ascent of the lights and the men"s mounting footsteps should have given Flavia warning of their coming. But either she disdained concealment or she was thinking of other things, for when they entered the pa.s.sage beyond the landing they espied the girl standing, in what had been darkness, outside the Colonel"s door. A pang shot through Asgill"s heart, and he drew in his breath.
She raised her hand. "Ah," she said, "he has been crying out! But I think it was in his sleep. Will you be making as little noise as you can?"
Asgill did not answer, but Payton did. "Happy man!" he said. And, being in his cups, he said it in such a tone and with such a look that a deep blush crimsoned the girl"s face.
Her eyes snapped. "Good-night," she said coldly.
Asgill continued to keep silence. Unfortunately Payton did not. "Wish I"d such a guardian!" he said with a chuckle. "I"d be a happy man then!" And, without thinking what he did, having Asgill"s air in his head, he hummed, with his head on one side and a grin on his face:
"They tried put the comether on Judy McBain: One, two, three, one, two, three!
Cotter and crowder and Paddy O"Hea; For who but she"s owner of Ballymacshane?"
Asgill"s face was dark with pa.s.sion, but "Goodnight" Flavia repeated coldly. And this time the displeasure in her tone silenced the Major.
The two men went on to their rooms, though Asgill"s hands itched to be at the other"s throat. A moment later two doors closed sharply.
Flavia remained in the darkness of the pa.s.sage, but she no longer listened--she thought. Presently she went back to her room.
There, when the door had closed upon her, she continued to stand and to think. And the blush which the Major"s insinuation had brought to her cheek still burned there. It was natural that Payton"s words should direct her thoughts more closely and more intimately to the man outside whose door he had found her; nor less natural that she should inst.i.tute a comparison between the two, should picture the manner of the one and the manner of the other, should consider how the one had treated her in an abnormal crisis, when he had held her struggling in his arms, when in her despair she had beaten his face with her hands, when, after her attempt on his life, he had subdued her by sheer force; and how the other had treated her in the few hours he had known her! And so comparing, she could not but find in the one a n.o.bility, in the other a--a dreadfulness. For, looking back, and having Payton"s words and manner fresh in her mind, she had to own that, in all his treatment of her, Colonel Sullivan, while opposing and thwarting her, had still, and always, respected her.
Strange to say, she could not now understand, much less could she sustain, that rage against him which had before carried her to such lengths. What had he done? How had he wronged her? She could find no sufficing answer. A curtain had fallen between the past and the present. Long years, it seemed to her, had elapsed, so that she could now see things in their due proportions and with a clear sight. The rising? It stood on a sudden very distant, very dim, a thing of the past, an enterprise lofty and romantic, but hopeless. She supposed that he had seen it in that light all through, and that for acting on what he saw she had hated him. The contemptuous words in which he had denounced it rang again in her ears, but they no longer kindled her resentment; they convinced. As one recovering from sickness looks back on the delusions of fever, Flavia reviewed the hopes and aspirations of the past month. She saw now that it was not in that remote corner, it was not with such forces as they could command, it was not with a handful of cotters and peasants, that Ireland could be saved, or the true faith restored!
She was still standing a pace within her door, and thinking such thoughts when a foot stumbled heavily on the stairs. She recognised it for James"s footstep--she had heard him stumble on those stairs before--and she laid her hand on the latch. She had never had a real quarrel with him until now, and, bitterly as he had disappointed her, ruthlessly as he had destroyed her illusions about him, outrageously as he had treated her, she could not bear to sleep without making an attempt to heal the breach. She opened the door, and stepped out.
James"s light was travelling up the stairs, but he had not himself reached the landing. She had just noted this when a door between her and the stairs opened, and Payton looked out. He saw her, and, still flushed with claret, he misunderstood her presence and her purpose. He stepped towards her.
"Thought so!" he chuckled. "Still listening, eh? Why not listen at my door? Then it would be a pretty man and a pretty maid. But I"ve caught you." He shot out his arm and tried to draw her towards him. "There"s no one to see, and the least you can do is to give me a kiss for a forfeit!"
The girl recoiled, outraged and angry. But, knowing her brother was at hand, and seeing in a flash what might happen in the event of a collision, she did so in silence, hoping to escape before he came upon them. Unfortunately Payton misread her silence and took her movement for a show of feigned modesty. With a movement as quick as hers, he grasped her roughly, dragged her towards him and kissed her.
She screamed then in sheer rage--screamed with such pa.s.sion and such unmistakable earnestness that Payton let her go and stepped back with an oath. As he did so he turned, and the turn brought him face to face with James McMurrough.
The young man, tipsy and smarting with his wrongs, saw what was before his eyes--his sister in Payton"s arms--but he saw something more. He saw the man who had thwarted him that day, and whom he had not at the time dared to beard. What he might have done had he been sober, matters not. Drink and vindictiveness gave him more than the courage he needed, and, with a roar of anger, he dashed the gla.s.s he was carrying--and its contents--into Payton"s face.
The Englishman dropped where he was, and James stood over him, swearing, while the grease guttered from the tilted candle in his right hand. Flavia gasped, and, horror-struck, clutched James"s arm as he lifted the candlestick, and made as if he would beat in the man"s brains.
Fortunately a stronger hand than hers interfered. Asgill dragged the young man back. "Haven"t you done enough?" he cried. "Would you murder the man, and his troopers in the house?"
"Ah, didn"t you see, curse you, he----"
"I know, I know!" Asgill answered hoa.r.s.ely. "But not now! Not now! Let him rise if he can! Let him rise, I say! Payton! Major!"
The moment James stood back the fallen man staggered to his feet, and though the blood was running down his face from a cut on the cheek-bone, he showed that he was less hurt than startled. "You"ll give me satisfaction for this!" he muttered. "You"ll give me satisfaction for this," he repeated, between his teeth.
"Ah, by G--d, I will!" James McMurrough answered furiously. "And kill you, too!"
"At eight to-morrow! Do you hear? At eight to-morrow! Not an hour later!"
"I"ll not keep you waiting," James retorted.
Flavia leant almost fainting against her door. She tried to speak, tried to say something. But her voice failed her.