“It is not indeed.  But, Mr. De Burgh, do you honestly think that devotion would last?  These violent feelings often work their own destruction.”

“Ay:  God knows they do, amazingly fast,” he returned, with a sigh and a far-away look.  “But what you say applies to all men.  If you ever marry you must run the risk of inconstancy in the man you accept.  I am at least old enough and experienced enough to value a good woman when I have found one, especially when she does not make her goodness a bore.  And you—­you have inspired me with something different from anything I have ever felt before.  Yes, yes,” he went on, angrily, as he noticed a slight smile on her lips.  “I see you try to treat this as only the stereotype talk of a lover who wants your money more than yourself; but if you listen to the judgment of your own heart, it is true and honest enough to recognize truth in another, and it will tell you that, whatever my faults (and they are legion), sneaking and duplicity are not among them.  It is quite true that when first I heard of you I thought your fortune would be just the thing to put me right, as I have no doubt my dear friend Mrs. Ormonde has impressed upon you, but from the moment I first spoke to you I felt, I knew, there was something about you different from other women.  I also knew that in the effort to win the heiress I was heavily handicapped by the sudden strong passion for the woman which seized me.”

“That surely ought to have been a means of success?” said Katherine, a good deal interested in his account of himself.

“No:  it made me, for the first time in my life, hesitating, self-distrustful, and awfully disgusted at having to take your money into consideration.  Had you been an ordinary woman, ready to exchange your fortune for the social position I could give my wife, and perhaps with a certain degree of liking for the kind of free-lance reputation I am told I possess, I should have carried my point, and presented the future Baroness de Burgh to my venerable kinsman months ago.”

“And suppose the unfortunate heiress had been a soft-hearted, simple girl?” said Katherine, with a slight faltering in her tones.  “Suppose she were credulous, loving, attracted by you—­you are probably attractive to some women—­and married you believing in your disinterested affection?”

De Burgh, who had risen from half-recumbent position, and stood leaning against a larger fragment of rock, paused before he replied:  “I think that I am a gentleman enough not to be a brute, but I rather believe a woman of the type you describe would not have a blissful existence with me.”

“I am sure of it.  You are quite capable of making the life of such a woman too dreadful to think of.”  She shuddered slightly.

De Burgh looked curiously at her.  “If you will have the goodness to undertake my punishment,” he said, “by marrying me without love, and letting me prove how earnestly I could serve you and strive to win it, I’ll strike the bargain this moment.  I have been reckless and unfortunate.  Now give me a chance; for I do love you, Katherine.  I’d love you if you were the humblest of undowered women.”