Her father’s brow grew black as a thunder-cloud; the veins of his temples swelled up, as if they had been filled with ink, and, after a few hasty strides through the study, he turned upon her such a look of fury as we need not attempt to describe.

“Miss Gourlay,” said he, in a voice dreadfully deep and stern, “there is not an allusion made in that undutiful harangue—­for so I must call it—­that does not determine me to accomplish my purpose in effecting this union.  If your mother was unhappy, the fault lay in her own weak and morbid temper.  As for me, I now tell you, once for all, that your destiny is either beggary or a coronet; on that I am resolved!”

She stood before him like one who had drawn strength from the full knowledge of her fate.  Her face, it is true, had become pale, but it was the paleness of a calm but lofty spirit, and she replied, with a full and clear voice: 

“I said, sir—­for I had her own sacred assurance for it—­that my mother, when she married you, had no previous engagement; it is not so with your daughter—­my affections are fixed upon another.”

There are some natures so essentially tyrannical, and to whom resistance is a matter of such extraordinary novelty, that its manifestation absolutely surprises them out of their natural character.  In this manner Sir Thomas Gourlay was affected.  Instead of flying into a fresh hurricane of rage, he felt so completely astounded, that he was only capable of turning round to her, and asking, in a voice unusually calm: 

“Pray name him, Miss Gourlay.”

“In that, sir, you will excuse me—­for the present.  The day may come, and I trust soon will, when I can do so with honor.  And now, sir, having considered it my duty not to conceal this fact from your knowledge, I will, with your permission, withdraw to my own apartment.”

She paid him, with her own peculiar grace, the usual obeisance, and left the room.  The stem and overbearing Sir Thomas Gourlay now felt himself so completely taken aback by her extraordinary candor and firmness, that he was only able to stand and look after her in silent amazement.

“Well!” he exclaimed, “I have reason to thank her for this important piece of information.  She has herself admitted a previous attachment.  So far my doubts are cleared up, and I feel perfectly certain that the anonymous information is correct.  It now remains for me to find out who the object of this attachment is.  I have no doubt that he is in the neighborhood; and, if so, I shall know how to manage him.”

He then mounted his horse, and rode into Ballytrain, with what purpose it is now unnecessary, we trust, to trouble the reader at farther length.

CHAPTER V. Sir Thomas Gourlay fails in unmasking the Stranger

—­Mysterious Conduct of Fenton

When Sir Thomas Gourlay, after the delay of better than an hour in town, entered the coffee-room of the “Mitre,” he was immediately attended by the landlord himself.