Councillor Crosbie was more altered than his chief; the expression of his face was changed. As Robert surveyed it he endured the compunction of remorse, in that for an instant he had doubted him. If Doreen had not been perversely haughty, she could not have accepted her aunt's garbled tale so readily. But then her spirit was wrung awry by long-continued crooning over wrongs; and being unhealthily sensitive, was predisposed to look out for evil. She had seen so much trouble that she had come to believe there could be nothing else in store. Terence's face had lost the open laugh of careless _bonhomie_ which had vexed her--which was so well suited to its Irish cast of features--by which I do not mean the confined forehead and coarsely gaping mouth, which make many of our countrymen so uncomely--but the highly-coloured, cheery face, with ruddy lips, which when they are parted display a row of dazzling teeth. His eye, whose unruly dancing defied fate, was strangely at variance now with the moody brow, till lately so unwrinkled; while a reckless swagger, which was a new characteristic, spoke of a bitterness and chafing defiance which a green tabinet necktie, with bows ostentatively displayed, served but further to accentuate. He stood in earnest converse with Mr. Curran, who sourly shook his head. Just out of earshot faithful Phil leaned against the wall, firing-iron in hand, watching his master in his dog-like fashion--sporting also, in humble imitation, a rag of green about his neck. Rapidly Robert unfolded his budget. The visitation at Trinity was mere child's play; not so this wholesale arrest. Even Curran forgot his customary caution, and put quick sharp questions as his face grew greyer. Emmett, Russell, Bond, were in prison, then. They would be tried--how? The law courts were closed and silent. By court-martial? Hardly. Lord Clare was too clever for that. Given the heads of a conspiracy who had grievously compromised themselves, he would of course get up a pompous series of mock state trials, with 'juries of the right sort' to bring the pageant to a predetermined end, and so justify and whitewash his arbitrary acts in the world's eyes. This was what he would do. 'The patriots should be defended!' Curran swore. He would defend them himself, no matter at what personal risk; in spite of any amount of threatening. The bursts of eloquence which before now had startled his audience to conviction, should be nothing to the burning words by which he would wring these unselfish lives from the jaws of death.