‘And I’ll give you another reason,’ said Miss Betty resolutely. ‘Kate Kearney cannot have two husbands, and I’ve made her promise to marry my nephew this morning.’
‘What, without any leave of mine?’ exclaimed Kearney.
‘Just so, Mat. She’ll marry him if you give your consent; but whether you will or not, she’ll never marry another.’
‘Is there, then, a real engagement?’ whispered Walpole to Kearney. ‘Has my friend here got his answer?’
‘He’ll not wait for another,’ said Lockwood haughtily, as he arose. ‘I’m for town, Cecil,’ whispered he.
‘So shall I be this evening,’ replied Walpole, in the same tone. ‘I must hurry over to London and see Lord Danesbury. I’ve my troubles too.’ And so saying, he drew his arm within the major’s, and led him away; while Miss Betty, with Kearney on one side of her and Dick on the other, proceeded to recount the arrangement she had made to make over the Barn and the estate to Gorman, it being her own intention to retire altogether from the world and finish her days in the ‘Retreat.’
‘And a very good thing to do, too,’ said Kearney, who was too much impressed with the advantages of the project to remember his politeness.
‘I have had enough of it, Mat,’ added she, in a lugubrious tone; ‘and it’s all backbiting, and lying, and mischief-making, and what’s worse, by the people who might live quietly and let others do the same!’
‘What you say is true as the Bible.’
‘It may be hard to do it, Mat Kearney, but I’ll pray for them in my hours of solitude, and in that blessed Retreat I’ll ask for a blessing on yourself, and that your heart, hard and cruel and worldly as it is now, may be changed; and that in your last days—maybe on the bed of sickness—when you are writhing and twisting with pain, with a bad heart and a worse conscience—when you’ll have nobody but hirelings near you—hirelings that will be robbing you before your eyes, and not waiting till the breath leaves you—when even the drop of drink to cool your lips—’