his religious fanaticism he could entertain no compassion whatever.  Father Marty was no great politician, and desired no rebellion against England.  Even in the days of O’Connell and repeal he had been but luke-warm.  But justice for Ireland in the guise of wealthy English husbands for pretty Irish girls he desired with all his heart.  He was true to his own faith, to the backbone, but he entertained no prejudice against a good looking Protestant youth when a fortunate marriage was in question.  So little had been given to the Irish in these days, that they were bound to take what they could get.  Lord Scroope and the Countess, had they known the priest’s views on this matter, would have regarded him as an unscrupulous intriguing ruffian, prepared to destroy the happiness of a noble family by a wicked scheme.  But his views of life, as judged from the other side, admitted of some excuse.  As for a girl breaking her heart, he did not, perhaps, much believe in such a catastrophe.  Of a sore heart a girl must run the chance,—­as also must a man.  That young men do go about promising marriage and not keeping their promise, he knew well.  None could know that better than he did, for he was the repository of half the love secrets in his parish.  But all that was part of the evil coming from the fall of Adam, and must be endured till,—­till the Pope should have his own again, and be able to set all things right.  In the meantime young women must do the best they could to keep their lovers;—­and should one lover break away, then must the deserted one use her experience towards getting a second.  But how was a girl to have a lover at all, if she were never allowed to see a man?  He had been bred a priest from his youth upwards, and knew nothing of love; but nevertheless it was a pain to him to see a young girl, good-looking, healthy, fit to be the mother of children, pine away, unsought for, uncoupled,—­as it would be a pain to see a fruit grow ripe upon the tree, and then fall and perish for the want of plucking.  His philosophy was perhaps at fault, and it may be that his humanity was unrefined.  But he was human to the core,—­and, at any rate, unselfish.  That there might be another danger was a fact that he looked full in the face.  But what victory can be won without danger?  And he thought that he knew this girl, who three times a year would open her whole heart to him in confession.  He was sure that she was not only innocent, but good.  And of the man, too, he was prone to believe good;—­though who on such a question ever trusts a man’s goodness?  There might be danger and there must be discretion; but surely it would not be wise, because evil was possible, that such a one as Kate O’Hara should be kept from all that intercourse without which a woman is only half a woman!  He had considered it all, though the reader may perhaps think that as a minister of the gospel he had come to a strange conclusion.  He himself, in his own defence, would have said that having served many years in the ministry he had learned to know the nature of men and women.