e words pricked his conscience.

"You are right," said he. "I am a blackguard, and you are an angel of
purity and goodness. Forgive me, I will never tempt nor torment you
again. For pity's sake forgive me. You don't know what men's passions
are. Forgive me!"

"With all my heart, dear," said Mary, crying gently.

He put both arms suddenly round her neck and kissed her wet eyes with a
sigh of despair. Then he seemed to tear himself away by a great effort,
and she leaned limp and powerless on the gate, and heard his footsteps
die away into the night. They struck chill upon her foreboding heart, for
she felt that they were parted.

CHAPTER X.

THE GORDIAN KNOT.

Walter, however, would not despair until he had laid the alternative
before his father. He did so, firmly but coolly.

His father, irritated by the scene with Bartley, treated Walter's
proposal with indignant scorn.

Walter continued to keep his temper, and with some reluctance asked him
whether he owed nothing, not even a sacrifice of his prejudices, to a son
who had never disobeyed him, and had improved his circumstances.

"Come, sir," said he; "when the happiness of my life is at stake I
venture to lay aside delicacy, and ask you whether I have not been a good
son, and a serviceable one to you?"

"Yes, Walter," said the Colonel, "with this exception."

"Then now or never give me my reward."

"I'll try," said the grim Colonel; "but I see it will be hard work.
However, I'll try and save you from a _mesalliance_."

"A _mesalliance_, sir? Why, she is a Clifford."

"The deuce she is!"

"As much a Clifford as I am."

"That is news to me."

"Why, one of her parents was a Clifford, and your own sister. And one of
mine was an Irish woman."

"Yes; an O'Ryan; not a trader; not a small-coal man."

"Like the Marquis of Londonderry, sir, and the Earl of Durham. Come,
father, don't sacrifice your son, and his happiness and his love for
you, to notions the world has outlived. Commerce does not lower a
gentleman, nor speculation either, in these days. The nobility and the
leading gentry of these islands are most of them in business. They are
all shareholders, and often directors of railways, and just as much
traders as the old coach proprietors were. They let their land, and so do
you, to the highest bidder, not for honor or any romantic sentiment, but
for money, and that is trade. Mr. Bartley is his own farmer; well, so was
Mr. Coke, of Norfolk,