t unconscious of the movement.
Some idea probably crossed his mind that he would meet the priest, but
Mrs. O'Hara thought that he intended to escape from them.

She rushed between him and the door and held him with both her hands.
"No; no; you do not leave us in that way, though you were twice an
Earl."

"I am not thinking of leaving you."

"Mother, you shall not hurt him; you shall not insult him," said the
girl. "He does not mean to harm me. He is my own, and no one shall touch
him."

"Certainly I will not harm you. Here is Father Marty. Mrs. O'Hara you
had better be tranquil. You should remember that you have heard nothing
yet of what I would say to you."

"Whose fault is that? Why do you not speak? Father Marty, what does he
mean when he tells my girl that there must be disappointment for her?
Does he dare to tell me that he hesitates to make her his wife?"

The priest took the mother by the hand and placed her on the chair in
which she usually sat. Then, almost without a word, he led Kate from the
room to her own chamber, and bade her wait a minute till he should come
back to her. Then he returned to the sitting-room and at once addressed
himself to Lord Scroope. "Have you dared," he said, "to tell them what
you hardly dared to tell to me?"

"He has dared to tell us nothing," said Mrs. O'Hara.

"I do not wonder at it. I do not think that any man could say to her
that which he told me that he would do."

"Mrs. O'Hara," said the young lord, with some return of courage now
that the girl had left them, "that which I told Mr. Marty this morning,
I will now tell to you. For your daughter I will do anything that you
and she and he may wish,--but one thing. I cannot make her Countess of
Scroope."

"You must make her your wife," said the woman, shouting at him.

"I will do so to-morrow if a way can be found by which she shall not
become Countess of Scroope."

"That is, he will marry her without making her his wife," said the
priest. "He will jump over a broomstick with her and will ask me to help
him,--so that your feelings and hers may be spared for a week or so.
Mrs. O'Hara, he is a villain,--a vile, heartless, cowardly reprobate, so
low in the scale of humanity that I degrade myself by spaking to him. He
calls himself an English peer! Peer to what? Certainly to no one worthy
to be called a man!" So speaking, the priest addressed himself to Mrs.
O'Hara, but as he spoke his eyes were fixed full on the face o