She measured him with her eyes.
"You marry me the day he is free of this charge—if he gets free—or on the day he gets his three years—if he's goin' to get them, and you don't want 'm to be for life."
He leaned forward, his voice husky with eagerness.
"If you change y'r mind, my dear, of course I can change mine."
He laughed uneasily, his fingers twitching.
"But I'll give you till this day week to make up y'r mind which it is to be. Then you give me y'r answer. Is it a bargain?"
"Yes," Deirdre said. She was dull and weary—beaten.
He rose from his chair and shuffled towards the door.
"Then I'll go and get the house ready for you," he cried, gleefully. "I'm not afraid what y'r answer'll be. Oh, you're snared, my pretty bird, and there's no way out for you, if you'd keep Dan Farrel, as he calls himself, out of the darbies, and him in his blindness, going to the Island again! It's taken a heap of schemin' to get you—but I set my mind on you when I saw you a slip of a girl coquettin' with Conal, at Hegarty's—the night you came back to the Wirree."
The desolation of her attitude reassured him.