'Oh, save her!' raved Robert, in remorse. 'My God, what have I done? Save her, Lord Glandore!'
Shane stretched out his hand towards his cousin. Chance was favouring him. Under pretext of protecting her, the project planned by the giant could without difficulty be accomplished now. Doreen shrank back.
'Begone!' she wailed, filled with the anguish of that heap upon the ground. 'What have you done with your brother--bastard!'
Shane winced, as from a whip-cut on the cheek. She, too, then knew the fatal secret; but it mattered not, for she was in his power. The military were closing in upon the mob. In the scurry and the darkness he would bear her far away. He was well known; what more natural than that her cousin should rescue the bereaved Miss Wolfe from such a scene?
Dismounting, he strode over the corpse of Lord Kilwarden, and calling on his friends to rally round the coach, prepared to withdraw it from the melée.
Upon hearing the name, twice repeated, the man who had held the pistol to the coachman's ear turned sharply round.
'You then are Lord Glandore?' he asked. 'The curse of God has found you, murderer! You and a few like you slew my father four years agone in sport on Stephen's Green! Do you recall it? He was only an old man--a shoemaker. Maybe you don't, for you've done many such deeds, and you were drunk!'
Shane thrust the importunate babbler aside, and ordered the coachman to urge on his horses.
'I've waited for my revenge all this while, my lord,' muttered the man, 'and you don't escape me now.'
Raising his pistol with steady aim, he shot Shane through the heart, and, diving, vanished in the crowd.