“No;—­they never show themselves in weather like this.  They only come when the wind blows.  I wonder where they go when the sun shines.”

“They are just the opposite to men and women who only come around you in fine weather.  How hot it is!” and she threw her shawl back from her shoulders.

“Yes, indeed.  I walked up from the burial ground and I found that it was very hot.  Have you seen Father Marty this morning?”

“No.  Have you?” she asked the question turning upon him very shortly.

“Not to-day.  He was with me till late last night.”

“Well.”  He did not answer her.  He had nothing to say to her.  In fact everything had been said yesterday.  If she had questions to ask he would answer them.  “What did you settle last night?  When he went from me an hour after you were gone, he said that it was impossible that you should mean to destroy her.”

“God forbid that I should destroy her.”

“He said that,—­that you were afraid of her father.”

“I am.”

“And of me.”

“No;—­not of you, Mrs. O’Hara.”

“Listen to me.  He said that such a one as you cannot endure the presence of an uneducated and ill-mannered mother-in-law.  Do not interrupt me, Lord Scroope.  If you will marry her, my girl shall never see my face again; and I will cling to that man and will not leave him for a moment, so that he shall never put his foot near your door.  Our name shall never be spoken in your hearing.  She shall never even write to me if you think it better that we shall be so separated.”

“It is not that,” he said.

“What is it, then?”

“Oh, Mrs. O’Hara, you do not understand.  You,—­you I could love dearly.”

“I would have you keep all your love for her.”

“I do love her.  She is good enough for me.  She is too good; and so are you.  It is for the family, and not for myself.”

“How will she harm the family?”

“I swore to my uncle that I would not make her Countess of Scroope.”

“And have you not sworn to her again and again that she should be your wife?  Do you think that she would have done for you what she has done, had you not so sworn?  Lord Scroope, I cannot think that you really mean it.”  She put both her hands softly upon his arm and looked up to him imploring his mercy.

He got up from his seat and roamed along the cliff, and she followed him, still imploring.  Her tones were soft, and her words were the words of a suppliant.  Would he not relent and save her child from wretchedness, from ruin and from death.  “I will keep her with me till I die,” he said.

“But not as your wife?”

“She shall have all attention from me,—­everything that a woman’s heart can desire.  You two shall be never separated.”

“But not as your wife?”

“I will live where she and you may please.  She shall want nothing that my wife would possess.”