“I should like,” said he, “to die on the day after her wedding, and so be out of her way forever.  I don’t want her to have any shadows cast over her from the past.  I don’t want her to open closet doors and find skeletons there.  I want her to be free—­free to live the sort of life she was born to and has a right to.”

He turned sharply upon the younger man.

“You’ve seen her!” he cried.  “You’ve talked to her; you know her!  Think of that girl dragged about Europe with me ever since she was a little child!  Think of the people she’s had to know, the things she’s had to see!  Do you wonder that I want to have her free of it all, married and safe and comfortable and in peace?  Do you?  I tell you it has driven me as nearly mad as a man can be.  But I couldn’t go mad, because I had to take care of her.  I couldn’t even die, because she’d have been left alone without any one to look out for her.  She wouldn’t leave me.  I could have settled her somewhere in some quiet place where she’d have been quit at least of shady, rotten people, but she wouldn’t have it.  She’s stuck to me always, through good times and bad.  She’s kept my heart up when I’d have been ready to cut my throat if I’d been alone.  She’s been the—­bravest and faithfulest—­Well, I—­And look at her!  Look at her now!  Think of what she’s had to see and know—­the people she’s had to live with—­and look at her!  Has any of it stuck to her?  Has it cheapened her in any littlest way?  No, by God!  She has come through it all like a—­like a Sister of Charity through a city slum—­like an angel through the dark.”

The Irishman broke off speaking, for his voice was beyond control, but after a moment he went on again, more calmly: 

“This boy, this young Benham, is a fool, but he’s not a mean fool.  She’ll make a man of him.  And, married to him, she’ll have the comforts that she ought to have and the care and—­freedom.  She’ll have a chance to live the life that she has a right to, among the sort of people she has a right to know.  I’m not afraid for her.  She’ll do her part and more.  She’ll hold up her head among duchesses, that girl.  I’m not afraid for her.”

He said this last sentence over several times, standing before the window and staring out at the sun upon the tree-tops.

“I’m not afraid for her....  I’m not afraid for her.”

He seemed to have forgotten that the younger man was in the room, for he did not look toward him again or pay him any attention for a long while.  He only gazed out of the window into the fresh morning sunlight, and his face worked and quivered and his lean hands chafed restlessly together before him.  But at last he seemed to realize where he was, for he turned with a sudden start and stared at Ste. Marie, frowning as if the younger man were some one he had never seen before.  He said: 

“Ah, yes, yes.  You were wanting to go out into the garden.  Yes, quite so.  I—­I was thinking of something else.  I seem to be absent-minded of late.  Don’t let me keep you here.”