between us, Mr. Ware," cried Theodore, with a sudden accession of vigor
in tone and mien. "And one of 'em is--go away from me, Michael!--one of
'em is, I say, why don't you leave our girls alone? They've got their
own priests to make fools of themselves over, without any sneak of a
Protestant parson coming meddling round them. You're a married man into
the bargain; and you've got in your house this minute a piano that my
sister bought and paid for. Oh, I've seen the entry in Thurston's books!
You have the cheek to talk to me about being drunk--why--"

These remarks were never concluded, for Father Forbes here clapped a
hand abruptly over the offending mouth, and flung his free arm in a
tight grip around the young man's waist. "Come with me, Michael!" he
said, and the two men led the reluctant and resisting Theodore at a
sharp pace off into the woods.

Theron and Celia stood and watched them disappear among the undergrowth.
"It's the dirty Foley blood that's in him," he heard her say, as if
between clenched teeth.

The girl's big brown eyes, when Theron looked into them again, were
still fixed upon the screen of foliage, and dilated like those of a
Medusa mask. The blood had gone away, and left the fair face and neck
as white, it seemed to him, as marble. Even her lips, fiercely bitten
together, appeared colorless. The picture of consuming and powerless
rage which she presented, and the shuddering tremor which ran over her
form, as visible as the quivering track of a gust of wind across a pond,
awed and frightened him.

Tenderness toward her helpless state came too, and uppermost. He drew
her arm into his, and turned their backs upon the picnic scene.