As he left the house he tried to harden his heart against Kate O’Hara.  The priest had lied to him about her father.  They must have known that the man was alive.  They had caught him among them, and the priest’s anger was a part of the net with which they had intended to surround him.  The stake for which they had played had been very great.  To be Countess of Scroope was indeed a chance worth some risk.  Then, as he breasted the hill up towards the burial ground, he tried to strengthen his courage by realizing the magnitude of his own position.  He bade himself remember that he was among people who were his inferiors in rank, education, wealth, manners, religion and nationality.  He had committed an error.  Of course he had been in fault.  Did he wish to escape the consequences of his own misdoing?  Was not his presence there so soon after the assumption of his family honours sufficient evidence of his generous admission of the claims to which he was subject?  Had he not offered to sacrifice himself as no other man would have done?  But they were still playing for the high stakes.  They were determined that the girl should be Countess of Scroope.  He was determined that she should not be Countess of Scroope.  He was still willing to sacrifice himself, but his family honours he would not pollute.

And then as he made his way past the burial ground and on towards the cliff there crept over him a feeling as to the girl very different from that reverential love which he had bestowed upon her when she was still pure.  He remembered the poorness of her raiment, the meekness of her language, the small range of her ideas.  The sweet soft coaxing loving smile, which had once been so dear to him, was infantine and ignoble.  She was a plaything for an idle hour, not a woman to be taken out into the world with the high name of Countess of Scroope.

All this was the antagonism in his own heart against the indignant words which the priest had spoken to him.  For a moment he was so overcome that he had burst into tears.  But not on that account would he be beaten away from his decision.  The priest had called him a villain and had threatened and cursed him!  As to the villainy he had already made up his mind which way his duty lay.  For the threats it did not become him to count them as anything.  The curses were the result of the man’s barbarous religion.  He remembered that he was the Earl of Scroope, and so remembering summoned up his courage as he walked on to the cottage.

CHAPTER X.

At Ardkill.

Sharp eyes had watched for the young lord’s approach.  As he came near to the cottage the door was opened and Kate O’Hara rushed out to meet him.  Though his mind was turned against her,—­was turned against her as hard and fast as all his false reasonings had been able to make it,—­he could not but accord to her the reception of a lover.  She was in his arms and he could not but press her close to his bosom.  Her face was held up to his, and of course he covered it with kisses.  She murmured to him sweet warm words of passionate love, and he could not but answer with endearing names.  “I am your own,—­am I not?” she said as she still clung to him.  “All my own,” he whispered as he tightened his arm round her waist.