‘Well,’ said Conseltine, with a great appearance of candour, ‘that is it! I’d rather have you out of the country. You’re dangerous here, Blake--dangerous to us and to yourself.’ ‘To myself!’ echoed Blake. ‘And how am I dangerous to meself?’ ‘Ye’ll be splitting some day on a certain matter that we know of--easy now, we needn’t name names--and if ye did speak, ’twould be worse for you than for us.’ ‘Make that good,’ said Blake. ‘Well,’ said Conseltine, ‘you’d very likely get a sum of money down from the other parties; but that once spent--ye’d get no more, and you’d spend the rest of your days in an Irish gaol. Now, so long as you’re faithful to our cause, you know you have a faithful friend in me. I’ll give ye five hundred down to go to America, and another two hundred a year as long as you live. Don’t answer now,’ he continued, as Blake opened his lips to speak. ‘Think it over, and I’m sure ye’ll see things as I see them, and admit that it’s best for you to be out of the way of temptation.’ Blake swallowed another tumbler of punch. ‘’Tis a mighty fine idea,’ he said thoughtfully, with a thickening of the voice which showed that he was fast nearing his normal pitch of intoxication. He rubbed his head dubiously, and, to clear his wits, poured out and drank a half-glass of neat whisky. ‘Leave my ancestral possessions! Desert Blake’s Hall! What are ye grinning at, ye thief of darkness?’ he demanded angrily of Richard, who had glanced round the barren room with a smile of pitying contempt; then he lurched forward in his chair, with bloodshot eyes glaring at Conseltine, who, having thrown away his second glass of whisky, filled a third. ‘Tell me, now,’ he said, ‘is the whisky good out there?’ Conseltine smiled and nodded. ‘Well,’ said Blake, ‘an Irish gentleman ought to travel. Five hundred pounds, ye said?’ Conseltine nodded again. ‘Five hundred on the nail, and two hundred a year for life?’ Conseltine nodded a third time. ‘Hand over the bottle,’ said Blake. ‘’Twill take a dale o’ whisky to settle this question.’ His wavering hand had scarcely steered his glass to his mouth, when a hurried step was heard in the garden, and a moment later the lawyer Feagus burst into the room, panting and perspiring. Blake stared at him for a moment without recognising him, and then rose, with the obvious intention of falling foul of this unwelcome visitor. ‘Hold him back!’ cried Feagus. ‘Hold him back, for the love of heaven!’ ‘Ye sneaking coward!’ cried Blake, trying to get past Conseltine. ‘How dare ye intrude into my apartments? I’ll have your life!’ Feagus, who, under ordinary circumstances, would have at once accepted the challenge, once more called to Conseltine to keep Blake back, and, unbidden, filled and drank a glass of spirits. ‘I’ve no time to waste with _you_, Mr. Blake. I’ve news, Mr. Conseltine; we’re cooked entirely!’ Conseltine thrust Blake into his chair, and turned. ‘What d’ye mean?’ he asked.