"Honour bright? Won't ye think better of it before I go?"
"I will not."
Morty paused, to tell the truth, in extreme exasperation. He had no great liking for the part he was playing; but why couldn't the man be reasonable? "You're sure of it, Colonel," he said.
Colonel John did not answer.
"And I'm to tell her so?" Morty concluded.
Colonel John rose sharply, as if at last the other tried him too far. "Yes," he said, "tell her that! Or," lowering his voice and his hand, "do not tell her, as you please. That is my last word, sir! Let me be."
But it was not his last word. For as Morty turned to go, and suffered the light to fall again through the aperture, the Colonel heard him speak—in a lower and a different tone. At the same moment, or his eyes deceived him, a shadow that was not Morty O'Beirne's fell for one second on the splayed wall inside the window. It was gone as soon as seen; but Colonel John had seen it, and he sprang to the window.
"Flavia!" he cried. "Flavia!"
He paused to listen, his hand on the wall on either side of the opening. His face, which had been pinched and haggard a moment before, was now flushed by the sunset. Then "Flavia!" he repeated, keen appeal in his voice. "Flavia!"
She did not answer. She was gone. And perhaps it was as well. He listened for a long time, but in vain; and he told himself again that it was as well. Why, after all, appeal to her? How, could it avail him? What good could it do? Slowly he went back to his chair and sat down in the old attitude over the embers. But his lip quivered.