Some tinkling false-tongued phrase as to lover’s oaths had once passed across his memory and had then sufficed to give him a grain of comfort.  There was no comfort to be found in it now.  He began to tell himself, in spite of his manhood, that it might have been better for him and for them that he should have broken this matter to them by a well-chosen messenger.  But it was too late for that now.  He had faced the priest and had escaped from him with the degradation of a few tears.  Now he was in the presence of the lioness and her young.  The lioness had claimed him as a denizen of the forest; and, would he yield to her, she no doubt would be very tender to him.  But, as he was resolved not to yield, he began to find that he had been wrong to enter her den.  As he looked at her, knowing that she was at this moment softened by false hopes, he could nevertheless see in her eye the wrath of the wild animal.  How was he to begin to make his purpose known to them.

“And now you must tell us everything,” said Kate, still encircled by his arm.

“What must I tell you?”

“You will give up the regiment at once?”

“I have done so already.”

“But you must not give up Ardkill;—­must he, mother?”

“He may give it up when he takes you from it, Kate.”

“But he will take you too, mother?”

The lioness at any rate wanted nothing for herself.  “No, love.  I shall remain here among my rocks, and shall be happy if I hear that you are happy.”

“But you won’t part us altogether,—­will you, Fred?”

“No, love.”

“I knew he wouldn’t.  And mother may come to your grand house and creep into some pretty little corner there, where I can go and visit her, and tell her that she shall always be my own, own, own darling mother.”

He felt that he must put a stop to this in some way, though the doing of it would be very dreadful.  Indeed in the doing of it the whole of his task would consist.  But still he shirked it, and used his wit in contriving an answer which might still deceive without being false in words.  “I think,” said he, “that I shall never live at any grand house, as you call it.”

“Not live at Scroope?” asked Mrs. O’Hara.

“I think not.  It will hardly suit me.”

“I shall not regret it,” said Kate.  “I care nothing for a grand house.  I should only be afraid of it.  I know it is dark and sombre, for you have said so.  Oh, Fred, any place will be Paradise to me, if I am there with you.”

He felt that every moment of existence so continued was a renewed lie.  She was lying in his arms, in her mother’s presence, almost as his acknowledged wife.  And she was speaking of her future home as being certainly his also.  But what could he do?  How could he begin to tell the truth?  His home should be her home, if she would come to him,—­not as his wife.  That idea of some half-valid morganatic marriage had again been dissipated by the rough reproaches