“Will you allow me to ask, sir, whether Miss Folliard is aware of this mission of yours to me?”

“She aware!  She never dreamt of it; but I have promised to tell her the result after dinner to-day.”

“Well, sir,” replied Reilly, “will you allow me to state to you a few facts?”

“Certainly; go on.”

“In the first place, then, such is your daughter’s high and exquisite sense of integrity and honor that, if I consented to the terms you propose, she would reject me with indignation and scorn, as she ought to do.  There, then, is your project for accomplishing my selfish and dishonest apostacy given to the winds.  Your daughter, sir, is too pure in all her moral feelings, and too noble-minded, to take to her arms a renegade husband—­a renegade, too, not from conviction, but from selfish and mercenary purposes.”

“Confound the thing, this is but splitting hairs, Reilly, and talking big for effect.  Speak, however, for yourself; as for Helen, I know very well that, in spite of your heroics and her’s, she’d be devilish glad you’d become a Protestant and marry her.”

“I am sorry to say, sir, that you don’t know your own daughter; but as for me, Mr. Folliard, if one word of your’s, or of her’s, could place me on the British throne, I would not abandon my religion.  Under no circumstances would I abandon it; but least of all, now that it is so barbarously persecuted by its enemies.  This, sir, is my final determination.”

“But do you know the alternative?”

“No, sir, nor do you.”

“Don’t I, faith?  Why, the alternative is simply this—­either marriage or hanging!”

“Be it so; in that case I will die like a man of honor and a true Christian and Catholic, as I hope I am.”

“As a true fool, Reilly—­as a true fool.  I took this step privately, out of respect for your character.  See how many of your creed become Protestants for the sake of mere property; think how many of them join our Church for the purpose of ousting their own fathers and relatives from their estates; and what is it all, on their parts, but the consequence of an enlightened judgment that shows them the errors of their old creed, and the truth of ours?  I think, Reilly, you are loose about the brains.”

“That may be, sir, but you will never find me loose about my principles.”

“Are you aware, sir, that Helen is to appear against you as an evidence?”

“No, sir, I am not, neither do I believe it.  But now, sir, I beg you to terminate this useless and unpleasant interview.  I can look into my own conscience with satisfaction, and am prepared for the worst.  If the scaffold is to be my fate, I cannot but remember that many a noble spirit has closed the cares of an unhappy life upon it.  I wish you good-day, Mr. Folliard.”

“By the Boyne! you are the most obstinate blockhead that ever lived; but I’ve done; I did all in my power to save you—­yet to no purpose.  Upon my soul, I’ll come to your execution.”