“But I am bound down.”

“How bound?  Who can bind you?”

“I am bound not to make Miss O’Hara Countess of Scroope.”

“What binds you?  You are bound by a hundred promises to make her your wife.”

“I have taken an oath that no Roman Catholic shall become Countess Scroope as my wife.”

“Then, Mr. Neville, let me tell you that you must break your oath.”

“Would you have me perjure myself?”

“Faith I would.  Perjure yourself one way you certainly must, av’ you’ve taken such an oath as that, for you’ve sworn many oaths that you would make this Catholic lady your wife.  Not make a Roman Catholic Countess of Scroope!  It’s the impudence of some of you Prothestants that kills me entirely.  As though we couldn’t count Countesses against you and beat you by chalks!  I ain’t the man to call hard names, Mr. Neville; but if one of us is upstarts, it’s aisy seeing which.  Your uncle’s an ould man, and I’m told nigh to his latter end.  I’m not saying but what you should respect even his wakeness.  But you’ll not look me in the face and tell me that afther what’s come and gone that young lady is to be cast on one side like a plucked rose, because an ould man has spoken a foolish word, or because a young man has made a wicked promise.”

They were now standing again, and Fred raised his hat and rubbed his forehead as he endeavoured to arrange the words in which he could best propose his scheme to the priest.  He had not yet escaped from the idea that because Father Marty was a Roman Catholic priest, living in a village in the extreme west of Ireland, listening night and day to the roll of the Atlantic and drinking whisky punch, therefore he would be found to be romantic, semi-barbarous, and perhaps more than semi-lawless in his views of life.  Irish priests have been made by chroniclers of Irish story to do marvellous things; and Fred Neville thought that this priest, if only the matter could be properly introduced, might be persuaded to do for him something romantic, something marvellous, perhaps something almost lawless.  In truth it might have been difficult to find a man more practical or more honest than Mr. Marty.  And then the difficulty of introducing the subject was very great.  Neville stood with his face a little averted, rubbing his forehead as he raised his sailor’s hat.  “If you could only read my heart,” he said, “you’d know that I am as true as steel.”

“I’d be lothe to doubt it, Mr. Neville.”

“I’d give up everything to call Kate my own.”

“But you need give up nothing, and yet have her all your own.”

“You say that because you don’t completely understand.  It may as well be taken for granted at once that she can never be Countess of Scroope.”

“Taken for granted!” said the old man as the fire flashed out of his eyes.

“Just listen to me for one moment.  I will marry her to-morrow, or at any time you may fix, if a marriage can be so arranged that she shall never be more than Mrs. Neville.”