y day. He had
desired that his gig should be ready, and had sent word to say that he
might start at any moment. But still he sat in his dressing-gown at
noon, unbraced, with a novel in his hand which he could not read, and a
pipe by his side which he could not smoke. Close to him on the table lay
that record of the life of Captain O'Hara, which his aunt had sent him,
every word of which he had now examined for the third or fourth time. Of
course he could not marry the girl. Mrs. O'Hara had deceived him. She
could not but have known that her husband was a convict;--and had kept
the knowledge back from him in order that she might allure him to the
marriage. Anything that money could do, he would do. Or, if they would
consent, he would take the girl away with him to some sunny distant
clime, in which adventures might still be sweet, and would then devote
to her--some portion of his time. He had not yet ruined himself, but
he would indeed ruin himself were he, the heir to the earldom of
Scroope, to marry the daughter of a man who had been at the French
galleys! He had just made up his mind that he would be firm in this
resolution,--when the door opened and Mrs. O'Hara entered his room.
"Mrs. O'Hara."

She closed the door carefully behind her before she spoke, excluding the
military servant who had wished to bar her entrance. "Yes, sir; as you
would not come to us I have been forced to come to you. I know it all.
When will you make my child your wife?"

Yes. In the abjectness of her misery the poor girl had told her mother
the story of her disgrace; or, rather, in her weakness had suffered her
secret to fall from her lips. That terrible retribution was to come upon
her which, when sin has been mutual, falls with so crushing a weight
upon her who of the two sinners has ever been by far the less sinful.
She, when she knew her doom, simply found herself bound by still
stronger ties of love to him who had so cruelly injured her. She was his
before; but now she was more than ever his. To have him near her, to
give her orders that she might obey them, was the consolation that she
coveted,--the only consolation that could have availed anything to her.
To lean against him, and to whisper to him, with face averted, with
half-formed syllables, some fervent words that might convey to him a
truth which might be almost a joy to her if he would make it so,--was
the one thing that could restore hope to her bosom. Let him come and be
near