e for Sheila Morgan suddenly died out, and he
was conscious of nothing but his father's stern look and the stiff set
of his lips as he sat there at his writing-table, demanding what there
was between Henry and Sheila.

"I'm in love with her, father!" he answered.

"Are you?"

"Yes, father, but she's not in love with me. She's just told me so."

"You've seen her this mornin' again?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'm glad she has more sense nor you seem to have. Damn it, Henry,
are you a fool or what? The whole of Ballymartin's talkin' about the
pair of you. Do you think that you can walk up the road with a
farm-girl, huggin' her an' kissin' her an' doin' God knows what, an' the
whole place not know about it?"

"I didn't think of that, father!..."

"Didn't think of it!... Look here, Henry, Sheila Morgan's a respectable
girl, do you hear? an' I'll not have you makin' a fool of her. I know
there's some men thinks they have a right to their tenants' daughters,
but by God if you harmed a girl on my land, Henry, I'd shoot you with my
own hands. Do you hear me?"

Henry looked at his father uncomprehendingly. "Harm her, father!" he
said.

"Aye, harm her! What do you think a girl like that, as good-lookin' as
her, gets out of goin' up the road with a lad like you that's born above
her! A bellyful of pain, that's all!"

"I don't know what you mean, father!"

"Well, it's time you learned. I'll talk to you plumb an' plain, Henry.
I'll not let you seduce a girl on my land, do you hear? They can do that
sort of thing in England, if they like ... it's nothin' to me what the
English do ... but by God I'll not have a girl on my land ruined by you
or by anybody else!"

Mr. Quinn's voice was more angry than Henry had ever heard it.

"Father," Henry said, "I want to marry Sheila!..."

"What?"

Mr. Quinn's fist had been raised as if he were about to bang his desk to
emphasise his words, but he was so startled by Henry's speech that he
forgot his intention, and he sat there, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, with
his fist still suspended in the air, so that Henry almost laughed at his
comical look.

"What's that you say?" he said, when he had recovered

"I want to marry her, but she won't have me!"

Mr. Quinn's anger left him. He leant back in his revolving chair and
laughed.

"By God, that's good!" he said. "By God, it is! Marry her! Oh, dear, oh,
dear!"

"I don't know why you're laughing, father!..."

"An' I thought you up to no