found at such short notice? Biddy's suggestion of half a
dozen available Joyces failed to satisfy him. However suitable the
Joyces might be for casual relations the idea of marriage with one of
them was unthinkable. After all, whatever she had done, Gabrielle was
a Hewish and the heiress, whatever that might mean, of the Roscarna
mortgages. Biddy, impatient of his obstinacy, gave him up.

With feelings of sore humiliation he consulted Considine. It was a
hard confession for Jocelyn and the awkwardness of Considine did not
make it easier. It seemed as if the two of them were up against a
stone wall. Considine blushing and monosyllabic, begged for time to
consider what might be done; and the fact that he did not seem to be
utterly hopeless cheered Jocelyn considerably. Gabrielle, in the
meantime, continued rapt and passive.

In a week the result of Considine's deliberations emerged, and, in a
fortnight, Gabrielle, only daughter of Sir Jocelyn Hewish, Baronet, of
Roscarna, County Galway, was married to the Rev. Marmaduke Considine at
the church of Clonderriff. The _Irish Times_ described the wedding as
quiet.

VIII

It is a curious task to enquire into the motives of Considine. Without
doubt he felt under some obligation to the family of Hewish, and
particularly to that dead lady Gabrielle's mother, and it is
conceivable that he had known enough of Jocelyn during their eighteen
years' acquaintance to have separated his good points from his
weakness, and even to respect him. But the conditions of his
dependence on the Roscarna family can hardly be said to have included
the fathering of its errors, and no degree of respect for Jocelyn could
have made him think it his duty to marry the daughter. Was it,
perhaps, a sense of religious duty that compelled him? It is difficult
to think of marriage with a creature of Gabrielle's physical
attractions as a mortification of the flesh; and though the ceremony of
marriage is supposed to save the reputation of a person in Gabrielle's
position, there was no religious dogma which decreed that marriage with
a clergyman could save her soul.

Then was it a matter of sheer Quixotism! That vice, indeed, might
conceivably have smouldered in the mind of this queer stick of a man, a
lonely fellow cherishing in solitude exaggerated ideals of womankind
and quick to rise to a point of honour. Even this will not do. There
is nothing in the rest of Considine's history that