"Heaven forbid!" he answered. "But——"
"If you think he is a protection to you," she continued in the same tone, "do not send him."
"He is not that," he replied, unmoved by her taunt. "But I am alone, and he is a comfort to me."
"As you please," she answered.
"Nevertheless he shall go," he continued. "It may be for the best." He was thinking that if he rejected this overture, she might make no other: and, hard as it would prove to persuade Bale to leave him, he must undertake it. "In any case," he added, "I thank you."
She did not deign to answer, but she turned on her heel and went out. On the threshold she met a serving-boy and she paused an instant, and the Colonel caught a momentary glimpse of her face. It wore a strange look, of disgust or of horror—he was not sure which—that appalled him; so that when the door closed upon her, he remained gazing at it. Had he misread the look? Or—what was its meaning? Could it be that she hated him to that degree! At once the elation which the interview and her thoughtfulness for Bale had roused in him sank; and he was in a brown study when Uncle Ulick, the only person, Bale excepted, to whom he could look for support or sympathy, came in and confirmed the story of his journey.
"You had better come with me," he said, with a meaning look at James and the O'Beirnes, who talked with averted faces, turned their shoulders on their elders and flouted the Colonel as far as they dared. "I shall lie at Tralee one night, and at Ross Castle one night, and at Mallow the third."
But Colonel John had set his course, and was resolved to abide by it. After breakfast he saw Bale, and he had the trouble with him which he had foreseen. But in the end military obedience prevailed and the man consented to go—with forebodings at which his master affected to smile.
"None the less I misdoubt them," the man said, sticking to his point with the east-country doggedness, which is the antipodes of the Irish character. "I misdoubt them, your honour. They were never so careful for me," he added grimly, "when they were for piking me in the bog!"
"The young lady had naught to do with that," Colonel John replied.