the sooner
done the better. What I shall do when it is done, I have not the most
remote idea. Where I shall be living this day month I cannot guess. I
can only say one thing certainly, and that is that I shall not come back
here. There never was a fellow so loose about the world as I am."

It was terrible that a young man who had it in his power to do so much
good or so much evil should have had nothing to bind him to the better
course! There was the motto of his house, and the promises which he had
made to his uncle persuading him to that which was respectable and as he
thought dull; and opposed to those influences there was an unconquerable
feeling on his own part that he was altogether unfitted for the kind
of life that was expected of him. Joined to this there was the fact of
that unfortunate connection in Ireland from which he knew that it would
be base to fly, and which, as it seemed to him, made any attempt at
respectability impossible to him.

Early on the following morning, as he was preparing to start, his aunt
again sent for him. She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining
her bedroom and there embraced him. Her eyes were red with weeping, and
her face wan with care. "Fred," she said; "dear Fred."

"Good-bye, aunt. The last word I have to say is that I implore you not
to leave Scroope as long as you are comfortable here."

"You will come back?"

"I cannot say anything certain about that."

She still had hold of him with both hands and was looking into his face
with loving, frightened, wistful eyes. "I know," she said, "that you
will be thinking of what passed between us yesterday."

"Certainly I shall remember it."

"I have been praying for you, Fred; and now I tell you to look to your
Father which is in Heaven for guidance, and not to take it from any poor
frail sinful human being. Ask Him to keep your feet steady in the path,
and your heart pure, and your thoughts free from wickedness. Oh, Fred,
keep your mind and body clear before Him, and if you will kneel to Him
for protection, He will show you a way through all difficulties." It was
thus that she intended to tell him that his promise to her, made on the
previous day, was to count for nought, and that he was to marry the girl
if by no other way he could release himself from vice. But she could not
bring herself to declare to him in plain terms that he had better marry
Kate O'Hara, and bring his new Countess to Scroope in order that she
mig