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.