alarmed her high-minded sense of delicacy and honor; and that you, her parent, are forcing her into a marriage which she detests.  Look into your own heart, Sir Thomas, and see whether you are not willing to risk her peace of mind for the miserable ambition of seeing her one day a countess.  Alas! my friend,” he continued, “there is no talisman in the coronet of a countess to stay the progress of sorrow, or check the decline of a breaking heart.  If Miss Gourlay be, as I fear she is, averse to this union, do not sacrifice her to ambition and a profligate.  She is too precious a treasure to be thrown away upon two objects so utterly worthless.  Her soul is too pure to be allied to contamination—­her heart too noble, too good, too generous, to be broken by unavailing grief and a repentance that will probably come too late.”

“If I assure you, my lord, that she is not averse to the match—­nay”—­and here this false man consoled his conscience by falling back upon the prophecy of Ginty Cooper—­“if I assure you that she will marry Dunroe willingly—­nay, with delight, will your lordship then rest satisfied?”

“I must depend upon your word, Sir Thomas; am I not in conversation with a gentleman?”

“Well, then, my lord, I assure you that it is so.  Your lordship will find, when the time comes, that my daughter is not only not indisposed to this union, but absolutely anxious to become your daughter-in-law”—­bad as he was, he could not force himself to say, in so many plain words, “the wife of your son”—­“But, my lord,” he proceeded, “if you will permit me to make a single observation, I will thank you, and I trust you will excuse me besides.”

“Unquestionably, Sir Thomas.”

“Well, then, my lord, what I have observed during our conversation, with great pain, is, that you seem to entertain—­pardon me, I speak in good feeling, I assure your lordship—­that you seem, I say, to entertain a very unkind and anything but a parental feeling for your son.  What, after all, do his wild eccentricities amount to more than the freedom and indulgence in those easy habits of life which his wealth and station hold out to him with greater temptation than they do to others?  I cannot, my lord, in fact, see anything so monstrous in the conduct of a young nobleman like him, to justify, on the part of your lordship, language so severe, and, pardon me, so prejudicial to his character.  Excuse me, my lord, if I have taken a liberty to which I am in nowise entitled.”  Socrates himself could scarcely have assumed a tone more moral, or a look of greater sincerity, or more anxious interest, than did the Black Baronet whilst he uttered these words.

The peer rose up, and his eye and whole person were marked by an expression and an air of the highest dignity, not unmingled with deep and obvious feeling.

“Sir Thomas Gourlay,” said he, “you seem to forget the object of our conference, and our respective positions.”