"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 passion 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.