at is to be done?" he repeated, "alas! what can be done? Tanty, you
will believe me when I tell you that I should have cut off my right
hand rather than brought this thing upon the child--but she is very
young--the impression, thank heaven, cannot in the nature of things
endure. She will meet some one worthy of her--with you, Tanty, kindest
of hearts, I can safely trust her future. But that she should suffer
now, and through me, that bright creature who flitted in upon my dark
life, like some heaven-sent messenger--these are evil tidings. Tanty,
you must take her away, you must distract her mind, you must tell her
what a poor broken-down being I am, how little worthy of her sweet
thoughts, and she will learn, soon learn, to forget me, to laugh at
herself."

Although addressing the old lady, he spoke like a man reasoning with
himself, and the words dropped from his lips as if drawn from a very
well of bitterness. Tanty listened to him in silence, but the tension
of her whole frame betrayed that she was only gathering her forces for
another explosion.

When Adrian's voice ceased there was a moment's silence and then the
storm burst; whisking herself out of her chair, the umbrella came
into play once more. But though it was only to thump the table, it was
evident Miss O'Donoghue would more willingly have laid it about the
delinquent's shoulders.

"Adrian, are you a man at all?" she ejaculated fiercely. Then with
sudden deadly composure: "So _this_ is the reparation you propose to
make for the mischief you have wrought?"

"In God's name!" cried he, goaded at length into some sort of
despairing anger himself, "what would you have me do?"

The answer came with the promptitude of a return shot:

"Do? why marry her, of course!"

"_Marry her!_"

There was a breathless pause. Tanty, leaning forward across the table,
crimson, agitated, yet triumphant; Adrian's white face blasted with
astonishment. "Marry her," he echoed at length once more, in a whisper
this time. Then with a groan: "This is madness!"

Miss O'Donoghue caught him up briskly. "Madness? My good fellow, not a
bit of it; on the contrary, sanity, happiness, prosperity.--Adrian,
don't stand staring at me like a stuck pig! Why, in the name of
conscience, should not you marry? You are a young man still--pooh,
pooh, what is forty!--you are a very fine-looking man, clever,
romantic--hear me out, sir, please--_and you have made the child love
you_. There you are a