But still he meant to go,—­certainly would go on this very day.  He had desired that his gig should be ready, and had sent word to say that he might start at any moment.  But still he sat in his dressing-gown at noon, unbraced, with a novel in his hand which he could not read, and a pipe by his side which he could not smoke.  Close to him on the table lay that record of the life of Captain O’Hara, which his aunt had sent him, every word of which he had now examined for the third or fourth time.  Of course he could not marry the girl.  Mrs. O’Hara had deceived him.  She could not but have known that her husband was a convict;—­and had kept the knowledge back from him in order that she might allure him to the marriage.  Anything that money could do, he would do.  Or, if they would consent, he would take the girl away with him to some sunny distant clime, in which adventures might still be sweet, and would then devote to her—­some portion of his time.  He had not yet ruined himself, but he would indeed ruin himself were he, the heir to the earldom of Scroope, to marry the daughter of a man who had been at the French galleys!  He had just made up his mind that he would be firm in this resolution,—­when the door opened and Mrs. O’Hara entered his room.  “Mrs. O’Hara.”

She closed the door carefully behind her before she spoke, excluding the military servant who had wished to bar her entrance.  “Yes, sir; as you would not come to us I have been forced to come to you.  I know it all.  When will you make my child your wife?”

Yes.  In the abjectness of her misery the poor girl had told her mother the story of her disgrace; or, rather, in her weakness had suffered her secret to fall from her lips.  That terrible retribution was to come upon her which, when sin has been mutual, falls with so crushing a weight upon her who of the two sinners has ever been by far the less sinful.  She, when she knew her doom, simply found herself bound by still stronger ties of love to him who had so cruelly injured her.  She was his before; but now she was more than ever his.  To have him near her, to give her orders that she might obey them, was the consolation that she coveted,—­the only consolation that could have availed anything to her.  To lean against him, and to whisper to him, with face averted, with half-formed syllables, some fervent words that might convey to him a truth which might be almost a joy to her if he would make it so,—­was the one thing that could restore hope to her bosom.  Let him come and be near to her, so that she might hide her face upon his breast.  But he came not.  He did not come, though, as best she knew how, she had thrown all her heart into her letters.  Then her spirit sank within her, and she sickened, and as her mother knelt over her, she allowed her secret to fall from her.