My lady bent down and kissed him, while lines of anxious thought gathered round her mouth. She was in the slough--up to the neck--out of which it was impossible to struggle. Under happier auspices she would have recoiled from the suggestion of cold-blooded barter. But helpless Shane's position must be assured by hook or crook while there was yet time. It struck his mother that Gillin--when she should discover that her outrageous designs for Norah were foiled--might blab the secret as a last shaft of vengeance. She determined that for the present, at least, the odious creature must be humoured for prudence' sake. It was with a dreary sort of satisfaction that she found her turbulent favourite was become suddenly so malleable. What signified the unsullied shields of departed Crosbies? Unblemished honour will not renew exhausted tissues. It is well for those to prate who have never been tempted. Shane, like the rest, must sell his mess of pottage at the best market--_his_ so long as it was not claimed. Then the idea flashed upon my lady as she meditated, 'Terence is marked out for an arch-traitor. He was not convicted--yet is he sentenced. If his claims were to be admitted now, his property (as that of one attainted) would be forfeit to the state! Better far that Shane should keep it.' Scruples were manifestly absurd. A brilliant suggestion of the devil this--which went far to reconcile my lady to existing circumstances. There was silence between mother and son. The thoughts of both were best left unspoken. Both were absorbed in their own dreams. Eblana's cold muzzle awoke Doreen from her reverie. She glided up the steps into the hall, crept with caution past the door of the dining-room, made for the young men's wing, where, in his own nest, Terence was brooding in despondency over his blank future. He had nothing wherewith to reproach himself. Nothing! Of that he was quite certain. It had been his duty to lay the question of union clearly before his brother, who, as head of the house, must adjudicate thereon upon his own judgment. The responsibility lay with him. Whichever way he chose to act, no dishonour could accrue to the younger from his decision, so long as he, Terence, had first registered his private protest. Shane had been most insulting--had stooped even to mock at his brother's deplorable condition. But that was of no moment. When we stand upon life's brink we can afford to contemn the foolish lapping of the waves. It mattered not a rush what Shane might say or think. Yet that scene in the rosary was not one of the rainbow-hued visions which were to fresco into warmth the cold walls of his prison-cell at Fort George. Knowing his brother's temper, it would have been more wise not to kick against the pricks. Perhaps, situated as Terence was, he would have done better not to speak at all--but it is difficult in the prime of life and manhood to accept at once your position as a corpse.