"You will tell her," Asgill took him up, "that I—shall I say—abducted her mare?"
"I shall tell her without hesitation."
"Or scruple?"
Colonel Sullivan glowered at him, but did not answer.
Asgill laughed a laugh of honest contempt. "And she," he said, "will not believe you if you swear it a score of times! Try, sir! Try! You will injure yourself, you will not injure me. Why, man," he continued, in a tone of unmeasured scorn, "you are duller than I thought you were! The ice is still in your wits and the fog in your brain. I thought, when I heard what you had done, that you were the man for Kerry! But——"
"What is it? What's this?"
The speaker was James McMurrough, who had come from the house in search of the kinsman he dared not suffer out of his sight. He had approached unnoticed, and his churlish tone showed that what he had overheard was not to his liking. But Asgill supposed that James's ill-humour was directed against his enemy, and he appealed to him.
"What is it?" he repeated with energy; "I'll tell you!"
"Then you'll be telling me indoors!" James answered curtly.
"No!" said Colonel Sullivan.