d to comfort her by caresses: but
he still said nothing.

"Why don't you speak, Myles? I shall die if you don't speak! Only
tell me what you mean to do; I'll do anything you bid me, if you'll
only say you don't mean to desert me."

"Desert you, Feemy! who spoke of deserting you, dearest?"

"Then you won't leave me, my own Myles? You won't leave me here with
those I hate! I love no one--I care for no one but you; only say you
won't leave me here when you're gone!" and again she clung to him as
though she could have detained him there for ever by holding him.

"But, Feemy, what can I do?--you see I've told you after what passed
I couldn't be married here."

"Why not, Miles? why not?--never mind what Thady said--or Father
John. What does it signify?--you'll be soon away from them. I'll
never treat you that way, my own Myles--I'd put up with more than
that for you--I wouldn't mind what the world might say to me--I'd
bear anything for you!"

"I tell you, Feemy, there are reasons why I couldn't be married
before I get to Cashel. There,--to tell you the whole, they wouldn't
let a man take his rise from one rank to another if he's married.
They can't prevent the officers in the force marrying, but they don't
like it; and it's a rule that they won't promote a married man. You
see I couldn't marry till after I was settled at Cashel."

Feemy received the lie with which Ussher's brain had at the moment
furnished him, without a doubt; she believed it all, and then went
on.

"But when you've got your rank, you'll come back, Myles, won't you?"

"Why that's the difficulty--I couldn't well again get leave of
absence."

"Then, Myles, what will you do?"

And by degrees he proposed to her to leave her home and her friends,
and trust herself to him, and go off with him unmarried, without her
father's blessing, or the priest's--to go with him in a manner which
she knew would disgrace herself, her name, and her family, and to
trust to him afterwards to give her what reparation a tardy marriage
could afford. She, poor girl, at first received the offer with sobs
and tears. She proposed a clandestine marriage, but he swore that
when afterwards detected, it would cause his dismissal;--then that
she would come to him at Cashel, when he was settled; but no,--he
told her other lies equally false, to prove that this could not be
done. She prayed and begged, and lay upon his bosom imploring him
to spare her this utter degradation; but n