ille thought that
this priest, if only the matter could be properly introduced, might
be persuaded to do for him something romantic, something marvellous,
perhaps something almost lawless. In truth it might have been difficult
to find a man more practical or more honest than Mr. Marty. And then
the difficulty of introducing the subject was very great. Neville stood
with his face a little averted, rubbing his forehead as he raised his
sailor's hat. "If you could only read my heart," he said, "you'd know
that I am as true as steel."

"I'd be lothe to doubt it, Mr. Neville."

"I'd give up everything to call Kate my own."

"But you need give up nothing, and yet have her all your own."

"You say that because you don't completely understand. It may as well be
taken for granted at once that she can never be Countess of Scroope."

"Taken for granted!" said the old man as the fire flashed out of his
eyes.

"Just listen to me for one moment. I will marry her to-morrow, or at any
time you may fix, if a marriage can be so arranged that she shall never
be more than Mrs. Neville."

"And what would you be?"

"Mr. Neville."

"And what would her son be?"

"Oh;--just the same,--when he grew up. Perhaps there wouldn't be a son."

"God forbid that there should on those terms. You intend that your
children and her children shall be--bastards. That's about it, Mr.
Neville." The romance seemed to vanish when the matter was submitted
to him in this very prosaic manner. "As to what you might choose to
call yourself, that would be nothing to me and not very much I should
say, to her. I believe a man needn't be a lord unless he likes to be a
lord;--and needn't call his wife a countess. But, Mr. Neville, when you
have married Miss O'Hara, and when your uncle shall have died, there can
be no other Countess of Scroope, and her child must be the heir to your
uncle's title."

"All that I could give her except that, she should have."

"But she must have that. She must be your wife before God and man, and
her children must be the children of honour and not of disgrace."
Ah,--if the priest had known it all!

"I would live abroad with her, and her mother should live with us."

"You mean that you would take Kate O'Hara as your misthress! And you
make this as a proposal to me! Upon my word, Mr. Neville, I don't think
that I quite understand what it is that you're maning to say to me. Is
she to be your wife?"

"Yes," said Neville, urged