ng Conrad--he's been writing to you."

I tried to say no, but my father bore me down.

"Don't go to deny it, ma'am. He has been writing to every one--the
Bishop, Father Dan, myself even. Denouncing the marriage if you plaze."

My father, in his great excitement, was breaking with withering scorn
into his native speech.

"Aw yes, though, denouncing and damning it, they're telling me! Mighty
neighbourly of him, I'm sure! Just a neighbour lad without a penny at
his back to take all that throuble! If I had known he felt like that
about it I might have axed his consent! The imperence, though! The
imperence of sin! A father has no rights, it seems! A daughter is a
separate being, and all to that! Well, well! Amazing thick, isn't it?"

He was walking up and down the room with his heavy tread, making the
floor shake.

"Then that woman in Rome--I wouldn't trust but she has been putting
notions into your head, too. All the new-fangled fooleries, I'll go
bail. Women and men equal, not a ha'p'orth of difference between them!
The blatherskites!"

I was silenced, and I must have covered my face and cried, for after a
while my father softened, and touching my shoulder he asked me if a man
of sixty-five was not likely to know better than a girl of nineteen what
was good for her, and whether I supposed he had not satisfied himself
that this marriage was a good thing for me and for him and for
everybody.

"Do you think I'm not doing my best for you, gel--my very best?"

I must have made some kind of assent, for he said:

"Then don't moither me any more, and don't let your Aunt Bridget moither
me--telling me and telling me what I might have done for her own
daughter instead."

At last, with a kind of rough tenderness, he took me by the arm and
raised me to my feet.

"There, there, go to bed and get some sleep. We'll have to start off for
the high Bailiff's early in the morning."

My will was broken down. I could resist no longer. Without a word more I
left him.

Returning to my room I took the letter I had been writing to Father Dan
and tore it up piece by piece. As I did so I felt as if I were tearing
up a living thing--something of myself, my heart and all that was
contained in it.

Then I threw open the window and leant out. I could hear the murmur of
the sea. I felt as if it were calling to me, though I could not
interpret its voice. The salt air was damp and it refreshed my eyelids.

At length I got into bed, shi