Lady Glandore (taught by a rough apprenticeship) quite admitted this; but looked forward now with satisfaction to the taming his spirit would undergo through a judiciously prolonged residence on a barren rock, with no one to uphold him in resistance to her will. Here he had no bully-Blasters to oppose a check to her influence. He would have nobody to talk to but the fisherfolk, save when he sailed down the lough to Letterkenny to be entertained by the squireens in garrison.
She did not fear their influence--poor country oafs! She gauged the inherent weakness of Shane's nature, which cloaked itself under a mask of fierceness; she knew his overbearing, swashbuckling ways would sink into a minor key of mewing if they had no encouraging sympathy from without. She knew better than really to believe that 'absence makes the heart grow fonder.' Nonsense! The heart is too selfish a thing to feed long upon itself or shadows. If she could only manage to keep Shane here long enough, he would become as meek as a lamb, and would cease to bleat of Norah in his dreams.
On one side things were going crooked, no doubt, but on the other they were preternaturally straight. Could they be expected to remain so?
Arthur Wolfe, whose self-interest told him to stay on in Dublin and watch events, was only too thankful to throw a responsibility on his sister (in whom he trusted), who, oddly enough, was gracious as to the burthen. He might have been compelled to leave Ireland for Doreen's sake--to take her away out of a false position, and so sacrifice the opportunity of rapid advancement, which is the marked characteristic of a turbulent time.
But this difficulty was got rid off by packing the girl off to Donegal. He could drift where expediency drove, unshackled, to add to his darling's fortune. Nothing could be more satisfactory to her father's peace of mind; nothing could jump better with my lady's long-established plan of joining these two incongruous cousins in holy matrimony. Shut up in idleness in Glas-aitch-é (for the building of Martello towers could not really engross his attention), what else could he do but fall a victim to the charms of his handsome cousin?
One little ghost of doubt yet lingered in my lady's mind, which she did her best to exorcise. Doreen was dreadfully pigheaded. What if moping were to render her more obstinate? She was not a Blaster or a Cherokee, but a stern-browed damsel, with much romance, tempered by a little common-sense, and an awkward tendency to rely upon her own judgment. Being a woman, too, she would probably detect at once another woman's web, such as might hope to escape the scrutiny of male observation. Was it possible that she might choose to upset all her aunt's elaborate scaffolding, after all?
She had her own reasons for determining to tie Shane, wealthy Lord Glandore though he might be, to somebody with money. What a pity that he declined polite society, where complaisant heiresses were to be met with who would joyfully take his coronet, and afterwards obey his mother. Circumstances had so ordained it that there was absolutely no available or possible heiress for him but this stiff-necked Catholic.
It is exasperating, is it not, to mark how people persist in opposing that which others think is best for them? The prejudiced, warped Countess of Glandore must have had urgent motives indeed for the prosecution of her project to account for the way in which she was stooping from her pedestal. Doreen was sharp enough to recognise this fact, and was never weary of marvelling at the enigma which seemed ever and anon to languish, then to spring to new life again. But Lady Glandore, when her mind was made up, could be obstinate too, though she had suffered much buffeting in life's conflict. That these two cousins were to be drawn together somehow, she was resolved. Opposition would come probably from Doreen's side, not Shane's. When her friends of the forlorn hope were slain and gone, she would surely succumb from mere despair.
My lady was glad, then, when she meditated on Lord Clare's hints as to the certain fate of the United Irishmen. It was distressful, though, that her own son should be amongst them. Was it distressful, or a relief? Would his mother be sorry if word came that he was dead?
My lady buried her face in the curtain yet again, and rocked her bowed form and wrung her hands. There is a phase of self-hatred and upbraiding which is more poignant than any physical pain, from which we emerge more wrecked and broken after each fresh access, and pray more desperately to be set free from torment.