"God forbid that there should on those terms. You intend that your children and her children shall be—bastards. That's about it, Mr. Neville." The romance seemed to vanish when the matter was submitted to him in this very prosaic manner. "As to what you might choose to call yourself, that would be nothing to me and not very much I should say, to her. I believe a man needn't be a lord unless he likes to be a lord;—and needn't call his wife a countess. But, Mr. Neville, when you have married Miss O'Hara, and when your uncle shall have died, there can be no other Countess of Scroope, and her child must be the heir to your uncle's title."
"All that I could give her except that, she should have."
"But she must have that. She must be your wife before God and man, and her children must be the children of honour and not of disgrace." Ah,—if the priest had known it all!
"I would live abroad with her, and her mother should live with us."
"You mean that you would take Kate O'Hara as your misthress! And you make this as a proposal to me! Upon my word, Mr. Neville, I don't think that I quite understand what it is that you're maning to say to me. Is she to be your wife?"
"Yes," said Neville, urged by the perturbation of his spirit to give a stronger assurance than he had intended.
"Then must her son if she have one be the future Earl of Scroope. He may be Protesthant,—or what you will?"
"You don't understand me, Father Marty."
"Faith, and that's thrue. But we are at the baich, Mr. Neville, and I've two miles along the coast to Liscannor."
"Shall I make Barney take you round in the canoe?"