"That is, he will marry her without making her his wife," said the priest. "He will jump over a broomstick with her and will ask me to help him,—so that your feelings and hers may be spared for a week or so. Mrs. O'Hara, he is a villain,—a vile, heartless, cowardly reprobate, so low in the scale of humanity that I degrade myself by spaking to him. He calls himself an English peer! Peer to what? Certainly to no one worthy to be called a man!" So speaking, the priest addressed himself to Mrs. O'Hara, but as he spoke his eyes were fixed full on the face of the young lord.
"I will have his heart out of his body," exclaimed Mrs. O'Hara.
"Heart;—he has no heart. You may touch his pocket;—or his pride, what he calls his pride, a damnable devilish inhuman vanity; or his name,—that bugbear of a title by which he trusts to cover his baseness; or his skin, for he is a coward. Do you see his cheek now? But as for his heart,—you cannot get at that."
"I will get at his life," said the woman.
"Mr. Marty, you allow yourself a liberty of speech which even your priesthood will not warrant."
"Lay a hand upon me if you can. There is not blood enough about you to do it. Were it not that the poor child has been wake and too trusting, I would bid her spit on you rather than take you for her husband." Then he paused, but only for a moment. "Sir, you must marry her, and there must be an end of it. In no other way can you be allowed to live."
"Would you murder me?"
"I would crush you like an insect beneath my nail. Murder you! Have you thought what murder is;—that there are more ways of murder than one? Have you thought of the life of that young girl who now bears in her womb the fruit of your body? Would you murder her,—because she loved you, and trusted you, and gave you all simply because you asked her; and then think of your own life? As the God of Heaven is above me, and sees me now, and the Saviour in whose blood I trust, I would lay down my life this instant, if I could save her from your heartlessness." So saying he too turned away his face and wept like a child.
After this the priest was gentler in his manner to the young man, and it almost seemed as though the Earl was driven from his decision. He ceased, at any rate, to assert that Kate should never be Countess of Scroope, and allowed both the mother and Father Marty to fall into a state of doubt as to what his last resolve might be. It was decided that he should go down to Ennistimon and sleep upon it. On the morrow he would come up again, and in the meantime he would see Father Marty at the inn. There were many prayers addressed to him both by the mother and the priest, and such arguments used that he had been almost shaken. "But you will come to-morrow?" said the mother, looking at the priest as she spoke.
"I will certainly come to-morrow."