“I wish I had spoken to her to-day,” he muttered. “Goodness alone knows when I shall find a chance now. I wonder how she is?” He realised that he could see nothing of her till breakfast time at any rate--if, indeed, she would be strong enough to appear at that meal. He had been sitting in the dark; he now threw aside his cigar, and, drawing his chair closer to the window, set himself resolutely to watch for the dawn and solace his vigil with dreams of Polly. A raw, chill air blew into the room. He noticed that a pane of glass was broken. One of the children had thrown a ball through it a few days before, and in the present situation of the Connolly household a glazier was an unattainable luxury. Harold rose with the intention of moving his chair out of the draught, but as he did so the sound of whispered words, seemingly at his very ear, made him pause. The voices came from the shrubbery below the window, and in one of them he recognised the unmistakable brogue of old Peter Dwyer. Had the man been to the police station and returned with the constables so quickly? This was Harold’s first thought, but he dismissed it as soon as formed. Peter had been barely half an hour absent, and the station was several miles off. Where had he been, then, and with whom was he conversing? Harold bent his head close to the broken pane and listened. “Are ye sure sartin that the young woman seen us?” inquired a rough voice--not Peter’s--“because this is goin’ to be an ugly job, an’ there’s no call for us to tackle it widout needcessity?” “Sartin as stalks,” whispered the old servant. “She was all of a thrimble, as if she’d met a sperrit an’ all the words she had was ‘I seen it--I seen it all,’ an’ she yowlin’ like a banshee.” “It’s quare we didn’t take notice to her, for she must ha’ been powerful close to see us such a night. I thought I heerd the horn, too, an’ I lavin’ the yard.” She wint out to blow it,” whispered Peter. “Most like it was stuck in the shrubbery she was.” “Come on thin,” growled the other; “it’s got to be done, an’ the byes is all here. Ye left the little dure beyant on the latch?” “I did that,” responded old Peter; and then a low, soft whistle sounded in the darkness. It was a signal. Rapidly but cautiously Harold Hayes left the window and stole across the room. He understood it all. Polly had seen the murder and had recognised the assassins. Old Dwyer was a traitor. He had slipped out and warned the ruffians of the peril in which they stood, and now they were here to seal their own safety by another crime--by the sacrifice of a life far dearer to Harold than his own. Swiftly, silently, he sped down the gloomy passage. The lives of all beneath that roof were hanging on his speed. Breathless he reached the little door, and flung himself against it with all his weight while his trembling fingers groped in the darkness for bolt or bar. A heavy hand was laid on the latch, and the door was tried from without.