“I don’t think much of their not knowing her, uncle.”

“Who does know her?  Who can say that she is even what she pretends to be?  Did you not promise me that you would make no such marriage?”

He was not strong to defend his Kate.  Such defence would have been in opposition to his own ideas, in antagonism with the scheme which he had made for himself.  He understood, almost as well as did his uncle, that Kate O’Hara ought not to be made Countess of Scroope.  He too thought that were she to be presented to the world as the Countess of Scroope, she would disgrace the title.  And yet he would not be a villain!  And yet he would not give her up!  He could only fall back upon his scheme.  “Miss O’Hara is as good as gold,” he said; “but I acknowledge that she is not fit to be mistress of this house.”

“Fred,” said the Earl, almost in a passion of affectionate solicitude, “do not go back to Ireland.  We will arrange about the regiment.  No harm shall be done to any one.  My health will be your excuse, and the lawyers shall arrange it all.”

“I must go back,” said Neville.  Then the Earl fell back in his chair and covered his face with his hands.  “I must go back; but I will give you my honour as a gentleman to do nothing that shall distress you.”

“You will not marry her?”

“No.”

“And, oh, Fred, as you value your own soul, do not injure a poor girl so desolate as that.  Tell her and tell her mother the honest truth.  If there be tears, will not that be better than sorrow, and disgrace, and ruin?” Among evils there must always be a choice; and the Earl thought that a broken promise was the lightest of those evils to a choice among which his nephew had subjected himself.

And so the interview was over, and there had been no quarrel.  Fred Neville had given the Earl a positive promise that he would not marry Kate O’Hara,—­to whom he had sworn a thousand times that she should be his wife.  Such a promise, however,—­so he told himself—­is never intended to prevail beyond the lifetime of the person to whom it is made.  He had bound himself not to marry Kate O’Hara while his uncle lived, and that was all.

Or might it not be better to take his uncle’s advice altogether and tell the truth,—­not to Kate, for that he could not do,—­but to Mrs. O’Hara or to Father Marty?  As he thought of this he acknowledged to himself that the task of telling such a truth to Mrs. O’Hara would be almost beyond his strength.  Could he not throw himself upon the priest’s charity, and leave it all to him?  Then he thought of his own Kate, and some feeling akin to genuine love told him that he could not part with the girl in such fashion as that.  He would break his heart were he to lose his Kate.  When he looked at it in that light it seemed to him that Kate was more to him than all the family of the Scroopes with all their glory.  Dear, sweet, soft, innocent, beautiful Kate!  His Kate who, as he knew well, worshipped the very ground on which he trod!  It was not possible that he should separate himself from Kate O’Hara.