“Give ye joy—it would have been an ugly thing—not but what we could have brought you through: I’d go through thick and thin, you know, for you, as if it were for my own son. But Lady O’Shane,” said Sir Ulick, changing his tone, and with a face of great concern, “I must talk to you about her—I may as well speak now, since it must be said.”
“I am afraid,” said Ormond, “that I spoke too hastily last night: I beg your pardon.”
“Nay, nay, put me out of the question: you may do what you please with me—always could, from the time you were four years old; but, you know, the more I love any body, the more Lady O’Shane hates them. The fact is,” continued Sir Ulick, rubbing his eyes, “that I have had a weary night of it—Lady O’Shane has been crying and whining in my ears. She says I encourage you in being insolent, and so forth: in short, she cannot endure you in the house any longer. I suspect that sour one” (Sir Ulick, among his intimates, always designated Miss Black in this manner) “puts her up to it. But I will not give up my own boy—I will take it with a high hand. Separations are foolish things, as foolish as marriages; but I’d sooner part with Lady O’Shane at once than let Harry Ormond think I’d forsake him, especially in awkward circumstances.”
“That, Sir Ulick, is what Harry Ormond can never think of you. He would be the basest, the most suspicious, the most ungrateful—But I must not speak so loud,” continued he, lowering his voice, “lest it should waken Moriarty.” Sir Ulick drew him away from the door, for Ormond was cool enough at this moment to have common sense.
“My dear guardian-father, allow me still to call you by that name,” continued Ormond, “believe me, your kindness is too fully—innumerable instances of your affection now press upon me, so that—I can’t express myself; but depend upon it, suspicion of your friendship is the last that could enter my mind: I trust, therefore, you will do me the same sort of justice, and never suppose me capable of ingratitude—though the time is come when we must part.”
Ormond could hardly pronounce the word.
“Part!” repeated Sir Ulick: “no, by all the saints, and all the devils in female form!”
“I am resolved,” said Ormond, “firmly resolved on one point—never to be a cause of unhappiness to one who has been the source of so much happiness to me: I will no more be an object of contention between you and Lady O’Shane. Give her up rather than me—Heaven forbid! I the cause of separation!—never—never! I am determined, let what will become of me, I will no more be an inmate of Castle Hermitage.”
Tears started into Ormond’s eyes; Sir Ulick appeared much affected, and in a state of great embarrassment and indecision.
He could not bear to think of it—he swore it must not be: then he gradually sunk to hoping it was not necessary, and proposing palliatives and half measures. Moriarty must be moved to-day—sent to his own friends. That point he had, for peace sake, conceded to her ladyship, he said; but he should expect, on her part, that after a proper, a decent apology from Ormond, things might still be accommodated and go on smoothly, if that meddling Miss Black would allow them.