"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.