e himself a
slave to an earldom.

But yet his mind was much confused and his contentment by no means
complete. He knew that there must be a disagreeable scene between
himself and his uncle before he returned to Ireland, and he knew also
that his uncle could, if he were so minded, stop his present very
liberal allowance altogether. There had been a bargain, no doubt, that
he should remain with his regiment for a year, and of that year six
months were still unexpired. His uncle could not quarrel with him for
going back to Ireland; but what answer should he make when his uncle
asked him whether he were engaged to marry Miss O'Hara,--as of course he
would ask; and what reply should he make when his uncle would demand of
him whether he thought such a marriage fit for a man in his position. He
knew that it was not fit. He believed in the title, in the sanctity of
the name, in the mysterious grandeur of the family. He did not think
that an Earl of Scroope ought to marry a girl of whom nothing whatever
was known. The pride of the position stuck to him;--but it irked him to
feel that the sacrifices necessary to support that pride should fall on
his own shoulders.

One thing was impossible to him. He would not desert his Kate. But he
wished to have his Kate, as a thing apart. If he could have given six
months of each year to his Kate, living that yacht-life of which he had
spoken, visiting those strange sunny places which his imagination had
pictured to him, unshackled by conventionalities, beyond the sound of
church bells, unimpeded by any considerations of family,--and then have
migrated for the other six months to his earldom and his estates, to
his hunting and perhaps to Parliament, leaving his Kate behind him,
that would have been perfect. And why not? In the days which must come
so soon, he would be his own master. Who could impede his motions or
gainsay his will? Then he remembered his Kate's mother, and the glances
which would come from the mother's eyes. There might be difficulty even
though Scroope were all his own.

He was not a villain;--simply a self-indulgent spoiled young man who had
realized to himself no idea of duty in life. He never once told himself
that Kate should be his mistress. In all the pictures which he drew for
himself of a future life everything was to be done for her happiness and
for her gratification. His yacht should be made a floating bower for
her delight. During those six months of the year