“What shall we do, Kate, if he deceives us?”
said the mother that evening.
“Die. But I am sure he will not deceive
us.”
Neville, as he made his way down to Liscannor, where
his gig was waiting for him, did ask himself some
serious questions about his adventure. What must
be the end of it? And had he not been imprudent?
It may be declared on his behalf that no idea of treachery
to the girl ever crossed his mind. He loved her
too thoroughly for that. He did love her—not
perhaps as she loved him. He had many things in
the world to occupy his mind, and she had but one.
He was almost a god to her. She to him was simply
the sweetest girl that he had ever as yet seen, and
one who had that peculiar merit that she was all his
own. No other man had ever pressed her hand,
or drank her sweet breath. Was not such a love
a thousand times sweeter than that of some girl who
had been hurried from drawing-room to drawing-room,
and perhaps from one vow of constancy to another for
half-a-dozen years? The adventure was very sweet.
But how was it to end? His uncle might live these
ten years, and he had not the heart,—nor
yet the courage,—to present her to his uncle
as his bride.
When he reached Ennis that evening there was a despatch
marked “Immediate,” from his aunt Lady
Scroope. “Your uncle is very ill;—dangerously
ill, we fear. His great desire is to see you once
again. Pray come without losing an hour.”
Early on the following morning he started for Dublin,
but before he went to bed that night he not only wrote
to Kate O’Hara, but enclosed the note from his
aunt. He could understand that though the tidings
of his uncle’s danger was a shock to him there
would be something in the tidings which would cause
joy to the two inmates of Ardkill Cottage. When
he sent that letter with his own, he was of course
determined that he would marry Kate O’Hara as
soon as he was a free man.
Fred Neville returns to Scroope.
The suddenness of the demand made for the heir’s
presence at Scroope was perhaps not owing to the Earl’s
illness alone. The Earl, indeed, was ill,—so
ill that he thought himself that his end was very near;
but his illness had been brought about chiefly by
the misery to which he had been subjected by the last
despatch from Castle Quin to the Countess. “I
am most unwilling,” she said, “to make
mischief or to give unnecessary pain to you or to
Lord Scroope; but I think it my duty to let you know
that the general opinion about here is that Mr. Neville
shall make Miss O’Hara his wife,—if
he has not done so already. The most dangerous
feature in the whole matter is that it is all managed
by the priest of this parish, a most unscrupulous
person, who would do anything,—he is so
daring. We have known him many many years, and
we know to what lengths he would go. The laws
