now hesitate,—­now, in her Kate’s present condition,—­as to redeeming those vows of marriage which he had made to her in her innocence, would raise a fury in the mother’s bosom which he feared to encounter.  He got up and walked about the room, while she stood with her eyes fixed upon him, ever and anon reiterating her demand.  “No day must now be lost.  When will you make my child your wife?”

At last he made a proposition to which she assented.  The tidings which she had brought him had come upon him very suddenly.  He was inexpressibly pained.  Of course Kate, his dearest Kate, was everything to him.  Let him have that afternoon to think about it.  On the morrow he would assuredly visit Ardkill.  The mother, full of fears, resolving that should he attempt to play her girl false and escape from her she would follow him to the end of the world, but feeling that at the present moment she could not constrain him, accepted his repeated promise as to the following day; and at last left him to himself.

CHAPTER IV.

Neville’s success.

Neville sat in his room alone, without moving, for a couple of hours after Mrs. O’Hara had left him.  In what way should he escape from the misery and ruin which seemed to surround him?  An idea did cross his mind that it would be better for him to fly and write the truth from the comparatively safe distance of his London club.  But there would be a meanness in such conduct which would make it impossible that he should ever again hold up his head.  The girl had trusted to him, and by trusting to him had brought herself to this miserable pass.  He could not desert her.  It would be better that he should go and endure all the vials of their wrath than that.  To her he would still be tenderly loving, if she would accept his love without the name which he could not give her.  His whole life he would sacrifice to her.  Every luxury which money could purchase he would lavish on her.  He must go and make his offer.  The vials of wrath which would doubtless be poured out upon his head would not come from her.  In his heart of hearts he feared both the priest and the mother.  But there are moments in which a man feels himself obliged to encounter all that he most fears;—­and the man who does not do so in such moments is a coward.

He quite made up his mind to start early on the following morning; but the intermediate hours were very sad and heavy, and his whole outlook into life was troublesome to him.  How infinitely better would it have been for him had he allowed himself to be taught a twelvemonth since that his duty required him to give up the army at once!  But he had made his bed, and now he must lie upon it.  There was no escape from this journey to Ardkill.  Even though he should be stunned by their wrath he must endure it.