"You are changed already," the man says more calmly, seeing the expression of horror on her face. "You and Launce have never been the same to me since that affair at Boyne. It is only Horace who remains my friend."
"And am I not your friend, Power?"
"There can be no friendship between you and me, Honor. There can be but one of two things—love or hatred. I love you as better men would tell you they love their own souls. I want you for my wife—no friend, but my very own, until death us do part! Honor, my darling—Honor, my own love, will you come to me?"
His arms close round her in the darkness, and with a low sob she yields to their masterful pressure, while his words—half fierce in their passion—seem to reach her like words heard in a dream.
Suddenly, out from the middle of the bog, comes a plaintive cry like the call of some night-bird. It is answered half a mile away, in the direction of Donaghmore, and then again there is silence. But it is no bird-call, Honor knows; and she raises her face from her lover's breast with a little sigh of fear.
"Don't sigh, my darling! Sure no harm could touch you with me," the man says tenderly.
But a chill has fallen upon the girl; her brief thrill of happiness has left a vague unrest behind it.
"I must go in now, Power. What will they say to me? I have never been out so late before!"
"And I have never kissed you before, nor held you in my arms," he answers almost incoherently. "Sure love like ours takes no heed of the clock!"
"My father will take heed of it, though," the girl rejoins, smiling, and hurrying, fast as the uneven path will let her, toward the lights that are gleaming now from all the lower windows of her home.