Only an Irish Girl

"Will you venture to the old ruins at dusk to-morrow, to see one who needs your forgiveness, even if you must refuse him your pity? P. M."

As she reads the tears rush into her eyes, half blinding her; the sorrowful pleading words grow dim and indistinct.

"How he must have suffered," she says to herself, "to have changed like this!" Masterful Power, who used always to take obedience for granted! There is something pitiful in it that goes straight to the tender woman's heart, loyal to its old traditions.

As she was putting the paper into the bosom of her dress, the drawing-room door opens, and Brian Beresford enters, followed by her father. Brian's eyes at once seek her where she stands beside the open window, her fingers playing nervously with the tell-tale scrap of paper.

His face darkens at once, and she knows that he has seen and understood.

CHAPTER IX

Never has time passed so slowly to Honor Blake. All the morning she goes about her work with a listless preoccupied air that could not fail to attract attention if there were any one to heed the girl or her moods.

Perhaps Brian Beresford heeds them; but Honor never gives a thought to him. She would be glad if he would go away and leave her to herself; but since he makes no such offer, she puts up with him.

And now, in the late afternoon, she sits down at the piano, more to pass the time than to amuse their guest. In truth, as she plays she forgets him altogether. The music, now low and sweet, now wild and martial, soothes her and brings back some of her lost nerve.

Brian Beresford, looking and listening, frowns, and then sighs. She is an enigma to him, this stately, contradictory Irish girl, with her moods and her prejudices, and, above all, her reserve. He has met no one quite like her. The women of his world are of a totally different type – he can understand them easily; but Honor he cannot understand.

He feels his heart soften as he looks at her. He is proud, and it has jarred upon his pride terribly that a man like Power Magill should have been preferred to him.

"And the chances are, now the fellow is in disgrace, she will cling to him all the closer," he says to himself bitterly. He does not care to own it, but in his heart he is savagely jealous of Power Magill.

Very softly is Honor playing now – a sort of dirge or lament for the chief of a clan. Suddenly she stops, and her head droops low over the keys. She has forgotten everything but the sore pain at her own heart and the anxious dread that is making every breath a torture to her.

"What if he should be taken to-night?" she is saying to herself. "How do we know that that child is to be trusted? How dare he trust any one when there is such a heavy reward out for him – poor Power?"

The tears come into her eyes as she thinks of him. It grows more bitter to her every moment, the thought of this meeting that is so close at hand now.

"Honor," Brian says gently, "will you not let me help you? You are in some trouble, I know." He has crossed the room and is standing beside her. "You can trust me, surely?"

"I could trust you with my life; but this secret is not my own."

"I know it is not; nevertheless you might trust it to me."

She raises her head and looks at him, and something in his face brings the color into her own. He is very brave and true, a safe shelter in trouble – she has proved that – and her heart yearns for the help he could give her. But it may not be. His sympathies are all on the side of law and order, and she has ranged herself, for this one night at least, among the opposite ranks.

"Don't think me curious, Honor," he says earnestly; "but I am sure you are in need of a friend's help, and I would like you to let me give it."

"No one can help me – not even you," she answers gently, getting up and looking at him with those troubled eyes that move him so strangely.

"And yet you are so good to me always that I should like to tell you my trouble if I might. But it is better not, perhaps."

"Let me say one thing, Honor. If this trouble of yours is connected with Power Magill – and I believe it is – you will not forget that he is a dangerous man, a man not to be trusted."

"I will not forget," she answers with a shiver, as she thinks of the meeting that is drawing nigh so rapidly.

The sun has set, and a cold mist is rising. It is very peaceful but rather dreary outside; and inside, in the familiar pretty room, the shadows are gathering.

Brian Beresford draws a step nearer. He had not meant to say one word of love to her – this willful girl who makes so light of him and his devotion; but, standing so close beside her in this tender gray twilight, impulse masters his judgment.

"Honor, has my love no power to touch you? Must this man forever stand between us even in his – " He is going to say disgrace, but the piteous look on the girl's face stays him.

"Oh, Brian, don't talk to me of love now – I cannot bear it!"

It is the first time she has ever called him Brian, and in her face, as she turns it from him, crimson from brow to chin, in her very attitude, as she stands with clasped hands before him, there is some subtle change that chills him.

"Then promise me that when times are brighter and you are happier you will listen to me, Honor."

"Perhaps," she stammers; and then, with tears in her eyes: "Oh, how cruel I am! I'm not worth loving!" And she is gone before he can say another word.

For so stoical a man, Brian Beresford is strangely excited to-night. Long after Honor has left him he walks up and down the darkening room, and, when the old butler comes in to light the lamps, he goes out on to the terrace and continues his measured tramp to and fro, smoking and thinking, and watching he scarcely knows for what.

Ever since he saw Honor hide away that scrap of paper in her dress he has been tormented with jealous fears.

"If the fellow were once out of the country I should feel all right," he tells himself. But the fellow is not out of the country – nay, may be in the immediate neighborhood for all he can tell, and in consequence he is racked with anxiety.

From the terrace he can see the ruins clearly at first; then the mist partly blots them out, and presently he can only guess at their position. But he has no interest in the ruins. He is not in the least superstitious; and certainly he does not believe in the old abbot.

He has reached the end of the walk and turned to go back, when the sight of a tall slight figure, coming rapidly down the steps not many yards away, brings him to a sudden halt.

"Ah!" he says, as he recognizes Honor. "Then it was not without cause that I've been so uneasy! A warning, these people would call it, I suppose."

It is a terrible blow to him, striking to the very root of his love. He hates mystery; and to find this girl, whom he had thought perfect in her maidenly pride and purity, stealing out in the dark from her father's house fills him with dismay.

For an instant he feels tempted to follow and speak to her, then he turns back. He can hardly control himself so far as to speak calmly, and every faint far-away noise makes him start.

"She is safe enough," he tells himself a dozen times; but he finds no comfort in his own assertions.

In his heart he feels convinced that she has gone to meet Power Magill; and in his jealous fury he almost hates her for it.

"Where is Honor?" her father asks fretfully; and then, as time goes on and she does not come in, he says again, "Where can Honor be?"

"I will go and find her for you," Brian says at last – he can bear the suspense no longer. "She cannot have strayed very far. I was talking to her a while ago."

He speaks lightly enough, but his heart is not light. A curious depression has come upon him. It seems to him that his love for this girl has died, and that half the brightness of his life has died along with it. He has not the least idea in what direction to begin his search.

The heavy iron gates at the end of the avenue are closed, but not locked, and he opens them and walks out into the high-road. Once, as he passes a narrow lane, he fancies he hears a slight rustle in the bushes that grow close and low at the side of the path; but, when he stops to listen, he can hear nothing, and so sets it down to fancy.

"Surely she has not gone into the village on a night like this," he says to himself at last, daunted by his want of success; and at the bare surmise he feels his face burn hotly.

Turning, he walks rapidly back – for the village lies in the opposite direction, past Donaghmore – and, as he comes near the gates, he is startled to see a car drawn up by the side of the high wall, and evidently waiting for somebody.

The driver has been standing beside his horse, and at the sound of Brian's step he leads the animal slowly forward. Apparently he does not wish to be seen; and indeed he might easily escape the notice of any one less quick of sight than Brian Beresford.

"Hallo!" Brian shouts; but he receives no answer; and, taking a stride or two, he gains the horse's side. The man walks on the other side of the animal, close by the wall; and, what with the darkness and the way his hat is pulled down over his eyes, his own mother might be pardoned for not recognizing him.

"Whose car is this?" Brian demands sternly, "and for whom are you waiting here?"

"Sorrer a sowl I'm waiting for, your honor! The best face in Derry wouldn't tempt me this minute. I'm just dead beat meself – and the baste! It's to Boyne Fair we've been this day, and a terrible time entoirely we've had of it."

Brian looks at the man and stops. He seems to be speaking the truth; and, if he is not, Brian knows the Irish peasant too well by this time to expect to force it from him.

With a short "Good-night," he turns away, and the man looks after him with a scowl.

"It's a bullet in yer skin that I'd give yez this blessed night if I dare take my own way," he mutters savagely.

Very slowly Brian Beresford walks back to Donaghmore. He is not so calm now, not so sure of Honor's safety. His fears are rising with every step he takes through the murky darkness. He feels that, if she is not in the house when he reaches it, he shall be able to keep silence no longer. Even at the risk of betraying her secret the squire must be told.

As he is passing the ruins a faint sound reaches his ear. He stops instantly and listens, his head bent, every sense on the alert. He is not thinking of Honor now – not in his wildest dreams would he connect her in any way with these weird unholy old ruins; but he is anxious – as anxious as ever Launce was – to solve the mystery that attaches to the place. Again it comes, a long-drawn, gasping cry, with this time a ring of fear in it.

"Good heavens, it is a woman!" he says, and goes quickly, but very quietly and cautiously, in the direction of the sound.

He has gained the low-browed gateway leading into the great quadrangle, when a dark figure dashes past him, and the next instant there is a loud report. He feels a sharp pain in his shoulder, and knows that he has been hit; but he does not give a thought to that in his intense excitement. He is conscious of but one thing – Honor's voice calling his name.

"Brian – oh, Brian, come to me!" The shrill clear tones ring through the ghostly silence.

CHAPTER X., AND LAST

Honor hastens down the avenue, looking neither to the right nor left. Her head is dizzy, her heart beating heavily in this nervous dread that has come upon her. She starts at every shadow that crosses her path; the sound of the wind in the pine-trees almost makes her scream, and when, just as she reaches the ruins, a low whistle breaks the quiet, a sharp cry of terror escapes her lips.

"Whist, miss! It's a friend," a deep voice whispers close beside her, though she can see no one; and the next moment Power Magill comes out from the low doorway and calls her gently by name.

"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 passing 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 passionate 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 – assails 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 passionate 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 passionate 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 shivering, 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 passing 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 associates!

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 passed 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 buttresses, 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 hoarsely. "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 hoarse 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!"

The same thought is in his own mind; but not for worlds would he put it into words. The men fled in a panic, thinking he was not alone; but let them discover that they have only one man to face, and they will soon return and make short work of him.

He knows it well; but what can he do? He cannot leave Honor, and, with his wounded arm, it would be impossible for him to carry her so far as the house. And as he holds her there, her cheeks against his shoulder, her little cold hands in his, he thinks that death itself with her might not be so very terrible after all.

"They will not come back," he tells her – "at least not yet. They will be afraid."

But even as he speaks a stealthy footfall breaks the quiet, and a man's voice says low and guardedly, yet distinct enough for them to hear:

"Have they had time to get to the house, Neil?"

"Troth an' they have, sor – twice over! I'd take my oath they didn't let the grass grow under their feet, once they got free!" – and the man laughs grimly, a low mocking laugh that echoes through the lonely place.

Honor clings more close to Brian, and shivers like one stricken with ague. So far they have not been seen; and the men – Power Magill and his servant – must have passed close to them. But any moment a stir, a heavy breath may betray them.

"If I thought there was a chance of overtaking them, I would follow them even now," Power Magill says fiercely. "To think a fellow like that should have baffled us at the last moment! If it were not for the men's cowardly fear that the police were with him, he couldn't have done it."

"Faith, and that's true for yer honor!"

Very slowly they come back again, talking earnestly. It is evident from what they way that Power Magill has offended his friends by to-night's rashness and, though his companion speaks respectfully there is a veiled threat in his words that Power cannot but feel.

"I would do it over again," Power answers sternly, "if it was my life that I was risking in place of my liberty."

"But the boys don't care to risk their liberty – why should they, the cratures? – even for a beautiful young lady like Miss Honor – Heaven bless her!" the other man says sturdily.

His master retorts angrily; but they are too far off now for their words to be heard; and again silence reigns.

It is long before Brian and Honor dare to move, though the girl is trembling with cold and the man's arm is paining him intensely – longer still before they venture out of their hiding-place.

Honor will never forget that walk up to the house in the chill damp night, the dread of pursuit making her heart throb wildly. Her companion is very silent; and, when he does speak, his voice sounds cold and harsh. More than once she tries to thank him for coming to her help so bravely; but the words die away on her lips. She finds it hard to believe that this man spoke tenderly to her only a little time ago. His very words ring in her ears and serve to make his grim silence more oppressive.

"He is sorry already for having spoken then," she says to herself; "but he need not be. I shall never remind him of them – never!"

They are within sight of the house before she can summon up courage to thank him for coming to her aid.

"It was so brave of you," she adds simply; "for of course you did not know how many you might have to face! I'm afraid I am very stupid – I don't know how to thank you as you deserve."

"No, no," he says hastily, almost impatiently. "Pray do not thank me at all; I deserve no thanks, I assure you! I would have done as much for any woman!"

There is something almost cruel in the way in which he says it, and tears well up in the girl's eyes.