“I don’t at all wish to act the tyrant to you.”

“I know that, uncle.”

Then there was a pause.  “I haven’t spoken to you yet, Fred, on a matter which has caused me a great deal of uneasiness.  When you first came I was not strong enough to allude to it, and I left it to your aunt.”  Neville knew well what was coming now, and was aware that he was moved in a manner that hardly became his manhood.  “Your aunt tells me that you have got into some trouble with a young lady in the west of Ireland.”

“No trouble, uncle, I hope.”

“Who is she?”

Then there was another pause, but he gave a direct answer to the question.  “She is a Miss O’Hara.”

“A Roman Catholic?”

“Yes.”

“A girl of whose family you know nothing?”

“I know that she lives with her mother.”

“In absolute obscurity,—­and poverty?”

“They are not rich,” said Fred.

“Do not suppose that I regard poverty as a fault.  It is not necessary that you should marry a girl with any fortune.”

“I suppose not, Uncle Scroope.”

“But I understand that this young lady is quite beneath yourself in life.  She lives with her mother in a little cottage, without servants,—­”

“There is a servant.”

“You know what I mean, Fred. She does not live as ladies live.  She is uneducated.”

“You are wrong there, my lord.  She has been at an excellent school in France.”

“In France!  Who was her father, and what?”

“I do not know what her father was;—­a Captain O’Hara, I believe.”

“And you would marry such a girl as that;—­a Roman Catholic; picked up on the Irish coast,—­one of whom nobody knows even her parentage or perhaps her real name?  It would kill me, Fred.”

“I have not said that I mean to marry her.”

“But what do you mean?  Would you ruin her;—­seduce her by false promises and then leave her?  Do you tell me that in cold blood you look forward to such a deed as that?”

“Certainly not.”

“I hope not, my boy; I hope not that.  Do not tell me that a heartless scoundrel is to take my name when I am gone.”

“I am not a heartless scoundrel,” said Fred Neville, jumping up from his seat.

“Then what is it that you mean?  You have thought, have you not, of the duties of the high position to which you are called?  You do not suppose that wealth is to be given to you, and a great name, and all the appanages and power of nobility, in order that you may eat more, and drink more, and lie softer than others.  It is because some think so, and act upon such base thoughts, that the only hereditary peerage left in the world is in danger of encountering the ill will of the people.  Are you willing to be known only as one of those who have disgraced their order?”

“I do not mean to disgrace it.”

“But you will disgrace it if you marry such a girl as that.  If she were fit to be your wife, would not the family of Lord Kilfenora have known her?”