‘Faith,’ said he, ‘’tis a case of the divil among the tailors. By the Lord, Conseltine, but things are looking mighty quare. I’m thinkin’ I won’t emigrate just yet. Sure, I’ll stop and see the fun! There’ll be great doin’s at the Castle by-and-by, I’m thinkin’.’ He laughed again, and drank another glass of whisky. Conseltine took no notice of the interruption, which he seemed scarcely to hear. ‘What are ye goin’ to do, sir?’ asked Feagus. ‘I don’t know yet,’ answered Conseltine slowly. He sat down, and leant his head upon his hand, Feagus and Richard watching him keenly. ‘She’s living at Larry’s mill, you say?’ he said presently, without raising his eyes from the floor. ‘At Larry’s mill,’ repeated Feagus. ‘She’s living all alone, under a false name, at that ould antiquated rat-trap.’ ‘Alone?’ repeated Conseltine meaningly. ‘Alone!’ repeated Feagus. ‘It’s ruin,’ said Conseltine, looking up,--‘it’s ruin for all of us if we don’t get that woman out of the way.’ ‘Bedad it is, then,’ said Feagus. His pale face went whiter as he looked from Conseltine to Richard, and then back again, before stealing a look at Blake, who, with his chin propped in his hands and his elbows on the table, followed their dialogue as well as his muddled wits would allow, with his habitual expression of dogged humour slightly deepened. ‘See here, now,’ continued the lawyer; ‘we’re all friends here. The danger’s pressin’, and what’s goin’ to be done has got to be done quick.’ Conseltine’s generally smooth and expressionless face was as a book in which he read strange matter. Richard’s heavy hangdog countenance was white with rage and distorted with apprehension. Blake was the only one of the trio who preserved anything like his customary appearance. ‘I was thinking,’ said Feagus, ‘as I came along, unless--you see now, the mill’s a mighty old place, worm-eaten and dry as tinder, and if--by an accident intirely--in the night, when there’s nobody about to render help--a stray spark’d do it, for there’s hay and sthraw scattered all round convanient--and if--of course by accident--the old place were to catch fire, powers alive! wouldn’t it be an odd happening? and if it did, what fault o’ yours or mine would it be, and who’d be the wiser?’ ‘God in heaven!’ cried Blake, rising to his feet, ‘’tis murder ye mean! Now, mark me, Conseltine, I’ll be no party to this. The curses of the son, the remorse of the old lord, and the spirit of that poor woman, would haunt me to me grave. I’ll have neither art nor part in such a plan.’ ‘Of course not,’ said Conseltine, turning his white face from the last speaker to Feagus. ‘It’s only Feagus’s fun!’ Feagus, looking at him, read more in his glance than could Blake and Richard, from both of whom his face was hidden. What it was he did not yet know, but in the score of years during which he had known Conseltine, he had never seen in his eyes such an expression.