Only an Irish Girl Part 13

"My darling, this has been too much for you!" he says, seeing the dread on her face as she stands close beside him. "I should not have asked you to come here; but I felt that I could not go away till I had seen your face, and heard you tell me with your own lips that you have forgiven me."

He has led her across the great paved court to a corner where they can stand together without being seen by any one pa.s.sing along the avenue.

There is something awful in the silence that broods round them; but the girl's nerves are too much shaken for her to be quite conscious of her surroundings. The man standing beside her is no less agitated.

"Honor, you know that, in acting as I did, I brought suffering upon myself--horrible suffering--apart from all social considerations! You have never doubted my love? You are true to me still; and I'm thankful for it. I would rather see you dead at my feet than know you were false to your solemn promise!"

The pa.s.sionate voice, speaking so close to her ear that she can feel his hot breath on her cheek, the pale eager face peering into hers, as if to read its secret even in the darkness, strikes a sudden chill through the girl. For the first time personal fear--fear of the man before her--a.s.sails her.

"Have you no word for me?" the man pleads wistfully. "You stand there like a spirit, and say no word of comfort or of pity! By heavens, if I did not know all that you dared for my sake, I should swear that you had no love in your heart for me!"

"Love for you!" she cries at last, speaking on the impulse of the moment, as it is in her nature to speak. "Why should I love you? What love had you for me when you shot my father--when----"

But he steps her almost savagely.

"I fired only one shot that night; but-- [lack in the text] ses on my false aim!--that missed the man I hated."

"And that man was Brian Beresford?"

"Yes," he answers slowly, defiantly, even, "it was Brian Beresford. It is no fault of mine he is alive to-night."

"And you would have killed him?" she cries, drawing back from him.

"Why not? He would have sent me to Kilmainham."

He is changed already--the girl divines this instinctively, and shrinks still farther away from him against the damp wall. This life that he has led--separated from friends and equals--has done its work.

"And now, Honor, we have no time to lose. Everything is ready for me to get away to-night, but"--with a sudden break in the pa.s.sionate voice--"oh, my love, I cannot go without you!"

"You cannot go without me, Power?" the girl gasps. In her wildest dreams no such fancy as this had risen to trouble her. "But you must go without me! I cannot go with you!"

"And why not, if you love me?"

"But I do not love you," the girl says calmly. "I am very sorry for you; but all love is done with between us. Surely, Power, after that night you knew it would be so?"

He does not answer her, and his silence fills her with more anxiety and fear than could any pa.s.sionate outburst.

He has walked to the end of the court, and stands there, looking over the broken parapet. Once she fancies that he raises his hand, as though beckoning to some one, but she is not certain, because it is so dark and he is so far off. As she stands s.h.i.+vering, she hears a step go slowly past. Surely it is Brian's step? Oh, what would she not give for the sight of his face now? And then his warning comes back to her--"He's a dangerous man--a man not to be trusted." Can it be that he knew him better than she did? Power himself has not been careful to keep this meeting from his friends. More than once she has caught a glimpse of dark figures pa.s.sing to and fro at the farther end of the court, where the pillars are still standing; and, as she realizes the fact that she is alone, a helpless girl, in the midst of these men, desperate and lawless as she knows them to be, it is only by an immense effort she keeps from screaming aloud. It would be useless, she knows--it might even bring about the very results she has most to dread.

"Honor," her lover says, coming back to her, "I have no time to plead with you, and sure I have no need to tell you again how I love you. I thought and hoped you would have come with me this night of your own free will; but since you will not do that, by St. Joseph, you shall come without it!"

From the road comes a sudden shrill whistle, and the girl's heart sinks within her. Oh, how mad she has been to put herself in the power of this man and his a.s.sociates!

For an instant, as she leans against the wall behind her, a faintness steals over her. Her eyes grow dim, and there is a sound in her ears like the rush and roar of the weir down the river.

When this feeling has pa.s.sed away she hears Power's voice speaking, as it seems to her dizzy brain, out of great darkness.

"There is a car waiting to take us to Boyne. Once there we are with friends, and you can make all needful preparations for our journey."

She does not answer him; she could not. Her lips are dry and quivering with the terror that has come upon her.

At this moment some one glides from behind a pillar and touches Power on the arm. With an impatient gesture he moves back a little way to listen to the man's message; and in this one second Honor sees her only chance of escape.

With a slow gliding motion she gains the end of the wall, and sees the open square of the old court before her.

Some one may be watching from behind those broken b.u.t.tresses, she knows; but she is desperate, and has no time to count the chances. With a rapid step she crosses the square, and is almost at the open gateway when a man steps forward and holds her back by the arm.

"Not so fast, miss! Shure ye'd not be for forgetting the masther!"

With a sharp cry of fear she struggles to get free; but she might as well try to fly as to loose her arm from the grip of those grimy fingers.

Surely the steps she heard a little while ago are coming back again--more slowly this time, but still coming! Yes, and it is Brian--she knows it; she cannot be mistaken, and, yielding to a sudden impulse, she calls his name aloud, calls it again and again, in her utter helplessness and misery.

She does not think that he will hear and come to her. She has no hope of help from any quarter, as she looks round upon the dark menacing faces of the men who have gathered so noiselessly and rapidly about her. She is in their power--she realizes that; and, as a Blake of Donaghmore, she expects but little mercy, unless it be granted her for Power Magill's sake.

He has come up to her now, and the men fall back a little at a sign from him.

"Are you mad, Honor?" he asks hoa.r.s.ely. "Is it your own death or is it mine that you seek this night?"

"Oh, let me go home!" she moaned, looking at him piteously. "If ever you loved me, Power, let me go home!"

But a threatening murmur rises from the men about them.

"If I would trust you to carry our secret back to Donaghmore they would not," he said curtly. "No, no, Honor--there is no turning back for either of us!"

The steps--the slow, heavy tread, as of a man in deep thought--are close at hand now. She can hear them plainly; so does Power, for he pauses and seems almost to hold his breath in the deep stillness that has fallen upon the place.

Through this quiet Honor's despairing cry--"Brian--oh, Brian, come to me!"--rings sharply out.

She hears a shout as if in answer; and the hoa.r.s.e murmur of threatening voices fills her heart with fear. She has twisted her ankle on the rough stones, and now, when she tries to move, she cannot, so she crouches back against the wall and waits for the help that she is sure is coming in an agony that is fast merging into unconsciousness.

"Honor, where are you? Speak!"

She tries to answer: but her voice has failed her; she can only moan faintly in her great pain.

And clearly, above all the sounds of this terrible night, she hears a man's voice saying sternly:

"Back, Magill! Would yez risk the lives of your friends for the sake of a woman?"

Then comes silence--a great silence--and darkness; and the terror and the pain and the longing for Brian all fade away together.

Fortunately Honor's swoon does not last long. The cold night air revives her, and she opens her eyes to see Brian Beresford kneeling beside her. He had almost stumbled over her in his eager search for her, and at the first glance he thought that she was dead.

Everything is intensely quiet as the girl raises her head from his shoulder and looks round her with terrified eyes. There is not a sound to tell that the place has so lately been filled with armed men.

"Where are they?" she whispers, trembling. "Oh, Brian, if they come back they will kill us both!"