so anxious? It is for your sake, and for
the sake of a name which should be dearer to you than it is even to me."

"I have no intention of marrying at all."

"Do not say that."

"I do say it. I do not want to keep either you or Jack in the dark as to
my future life. This young lady,--of whom, by the by, neither you nor
Lady Mary Quin know anything, shall not become Countess of Scroope. To
that I have made up my mind."

"Thank God."

"But as long as she lives I will make no woman Countess of Scroope. Let
Jack marry this girl that he is in love with. They shall live here and
have the house to themselves if they like it. He will look after the
property and shall have whatever income old Mellerby thinks proper. I
will keep the promise I made to my uncle,--but the keeping of it will
make it impossible for me to live here. I would prefer now that you
should say no more on the subject." Then he left her, quitting the room
with some stateliness in his step, as though conscious that at such a
moment as this it behoved him to assume his rank.

The dowager sat alone all that morning thinking of the thing she had
done. She did now believe that he was positively resolved not to marry
Kate O'Hara, and she believed also that she herself had fixed him in
that resolution. In doing so had she or had she not committed a deadly
sin? She knew almost with accuracy what had occurred on the coast of
Clare. A young girl, innocent herself up to that moment, had been
enticed to her ruin by words of love which had been hallowed in her ears
by vows of marriage. Those vows which had possessed so deadly an
efficacy, were now to be simply broken! The cruelty to her would be
damnable, devilish,--surely worthy of hell if any sin of man can be so
called! And she, who could not divest herself of a certain pride taken
in the austere morality of her own life, she who was now a widow anxious
to devote her life solely to God, had persuaded the man to this sin, in
order that her successor as Countess of Scroope might not be, in her
opinion, unfitting for nobility! The young lord had promised her that he
would be guilty of this sin, so damnable, so devilish, telling her as he
did so, that as a consequence of his promise he must continue to live a
life of wickedness! In the agony of her spirit she threw herself upon
her knees and implored the Lord to pardon her and to guide her. But even
while kneeling before the throne of heaven she could not drive the p