"Desert you, Feemy! who spoke of deserting you, dearest?"
"Then you won't leave me, my own Myles? You won't leave me here with those I hate! I love no one—I care for no one but you; only say you won't leave me here when you're gone!" and again she clung to him as though she could have detained him there for ever by holding him.
"But, Feemy, what can I do?—you see I've told you after what passed I couldn't be married here."
"Why not, Miles? why not?—never mind what Thady said—or Father John. What does it signify?—you'll be soon away from them. I'll never treat you that way, my own Myles—I'd put up with more than that for you—I wouldn't mind what the world might say to me—I'd bear anything for you!"
"I tell you, Feemy, there are reasons why I couldn't be married before I get to Cashel. There,—to tell you the whole, they wouldn't let a man take his rise from one rank to another if he's married. They can't prevent the officers in the force marrying, but they don't like it; and it's a rule that they won't promote a married man. You see I couldn't marry till after I was settled at Cashel."
Feemy received the lie with which Ussher's brain had at the moment furnished him, without a doubt; she believed it all, and then went on.
"But when you've got your rank, you'll come back, Myles, won't you?"
"Why that's the difficulty—I couldn't well again get leave of absence."
"Then, Myles, what will you do?"
And by degrees he proposed to her to leave her home and her friends, and trust herself to him, and go off with him unmarried, without her father's blessing, or the priest's—to go with him in a manner which she knew would disgrace herself, her name, and her family, and to trust to him afterwards to give her what reparation a tardy marriage could afford. She, poor girl, at first received the offer with sobs and tears. She proposed a clandestine marriage, but he swore that when afterwards detected, it would cause his dismissal;—then that she would come to him at Cashel, when he was settled; but no,—he told her other lies equally false, to prove that this could not be done. She prayed and begged, and lay upon his bosom imploring him to spare her this utter degradation; but now that the proposal had been fairly made, that he had got her to discuss the plan, his usual sternness returned; and at last he told her, somewhat roughly, that if she would not come with him in the manner he proposed, he would leave her now and for ever.