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“I was going to stand inside the door they have been hammering at,” he answered, “in case they should break it in.”

“Papa is there,” said the girl; “perhaps you had better wait here. They will try the front door next”

“Very good,” he assented; and then added, with a sudden apprehension, “but the windows. There are so many of them. How can we watch them all?”

“There are bars to all the lower windows,” she replied, “and I do not think they know where to find ladders. No; their next attempt will be at the hall door, and it will be harder to repel than anywhere else, for the portico will protect them from shots from the windows.”

“And now, Miss Connolly,” urged Harold, “you can do no good here. Had not you better go upstairs out of the way?”

“No, no; I would rather wait here,” she answered. “Don’t be afraid. I sha’n’t give way again as I did to-night. I don’t know what came over me, but it was all so horrible–so unexpected–” She broke off with a little shuddering sigh.

“You saw them attack him?” asked Harold.

She nodded. “I was under that big cedar outside the parlor window. I had hidden there to blow the horn. Suddenly I saw Fergus with a lantern in his hand coming full speed toward the house. Just as he got within a few paces of me, half a dozen men burst out from the laurels. Oh, how savagely they struck at him! He was down in a moment. It was all so close to me: I recognised Red Mike by the light of poor Fergus’s lantern.”

“And then?” asked Hayes.

“I don’t think I remember any more. I must have staggered on to the house, for they tell me I was found at the foot of the steps, but I don’t know how I got there. I was terribly frightened, but I sha’n’t do it again–not if they blow the roof off,” she said, trying to smile.

“I should think they would be afraid to persevere now that they are discovered,” observed Harold. “This firing must alarm the neighbourhood.”

“In a lonely place like this!” said the girl. “No, no, Mr. Hayes; there are not many to hear these shots, and none that would not sooner fight against us than on our side. We must depend on ourselves. But oh,” she wailed, her woman’s heart betraying itself through the mechanical calm she had maintained so long, “oh, I am sorry that your friendship for us should have brought you into such peril–to think that your visit here may cost you your life,” and she broke off and covered her streaming eyes with her hands.

“Indeed, indeed,” said Harold, earnestly, “I think any danger I may run a small price to pay for the privilege of knowing you, and, and–of loving you.”

It was out at last; the words that had been so difficult to say came trippingly from his tongue now, and she did not repulse nor attempt to licence him.

There, in the dimly lighted, lofty hall, he poured out all that had been in his heart since he had known her, and won from her in return a whisper that emboldened him to draw the yielding form toward him and press his lips to hers.

With a pealing crash the pickaxe bit into the stout oaken door, and the young lovers sprang apart, terrified at this rude interruption of dreams. Blow followed blow, and the massive woodwork shivered and splintered and swayed under the savage impulse from without.

The assailants had abandoned their attempt on the postern; they had ignored the kitchen door, within which stout Tom Neil with Dick’s double-barrel stood on guard; they had turned their attention to the main entrance, where a projecting portico partially sheltered them from the galling discharges of Jack’s favourite “Rigby.”

They were only partially sheltered, however. The heir of Lisnahoe had quickly shifted his ground when the attack on the postern was abandoned, and he now stood in another room, ready, with the quickness of a practised snipe-shot, to fire on any arm or hand or foot which showed even for an instant outside the shadow of the portico.