Part 4 (1/2)
”They might have spared themselves the trouble--the police cannot help them.”
”What can we do, Power? What ought we to do?” she says, almost piteously.
”I told you long ago what you ought to do. It's almost too late now--Launce has made the place too hot to hold him, and that's the truth, Honor. The sooner he goes back to Dublin the better for all of you.”
”Poor Launce--I don't see what he has done!”
”He has done enough to get his _quietus_,” Power answers grimly; ”and he would have had it long ago if he had not had a friend to speak 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 pa.s.sion 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 s.h.i.+vers even in the hot suns.h.i.+ne--”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, before the eyes of his wife and little children. I cried out against it in horror. 'There is not a man in the place who could do such a thing!' I said; but I am beginning to know better now.”
A look of anguish crosses the man's face as he listens to her. He is a gentleman, and his better nature must revolt from crimes like this.
”The man had been warned. If he had held his tongue, no harm would have come to him.”