"YOUR position? And what is HIS? You with EVERYTHING you want in life—that man with NOTHING. He is being hounded to prison for what? Pleading for his country! Is that a crime? He was shot down by soldiers—for what? For showing something we English are always boasting of feeling OURSELVES and resent any other nation feeling it—patriotism!"
"Stop!" commanded Kingsnorth.
"If you take that sick, wretched man out of this house it will be a crime—" began Angela.
Kingsnorth stopped her; he turned to the magistrate: "Kindly take the man away."
Roche moved to the window.
Angela's heart sank. All her pleading was in vain. Her voice faltered and broke:
"Very well. Then take him. Sentence him for doing something his own countrymen will one day build a monument to him for doing. The moment the prison-door closes behind him a thousand voices will cry 'Shame' on you and your government, and a thousand new patriots will be enrolled. And when he comes out from his torture he'll carry on the work of hatred and vengeance against his tyrants. He will fight you to the last ditch. You may torture his BODY, but you cannot break his HEART or wither his spirit. They're beyond you. They're—they're—," she stopped suddenly, as her voice rose to the breaking-point, and left the room.
The magistrate went down the drive. In a few moments O'Connell was on his way to the Court-House, a closely guarded prisoner.
Angela, from her window, watched the men disappear. She buried her face in her hands and moaned as she had not done since her mother left her just a few years before. The girlhood in her was dead. She was a woman. The one great note had come to her, transforming her whole nature—love.
And the man she loved was being carried away to the misery and degradation of a convict.