that he had come to arrange the marriage finally. He said to me that he would rather than all the gold and silver he had in the world that he were able to marry Mary. I thought I had happy news to tell him when I said that I knew Mary was quite willing to agree to the match. Instead of that, you would think I had told him she was dead. 'It is a miserable and disastrous business,' said he, and he rushed out at the door from me like a madman.
"Whatever he said to Mary to take away her depression, I am afraid that Sive has some tight grip upon him, and that if she hadn't she wouldn't be boasting of it all over the country as she is; nor would he part so easily from a woman for whom he cares so much, and she for him.
"And look," said the priest, "at the other side of the matter. He has not parted from Mary more easily than she has parted from him."
"By the deer, Father, it's true for you!" said John. "Though no one else has any claim upon her."
"It is the most extraordinary case I have ever met with," said the priest.
"Wouldn't it be reasonable to expect, Father," said John, "that if he did give a promise to Dermot's Sive, it should be possible to get at the root of the matter, and set the promise aside? Surely the world knows he is not bound in the sight of God to fulfil that promise."
"Doubtless," said the priest, "if the promise does exist, he is not bound to fulfil it."
"If it does exist, Father, do you say?" said John. "That implies that you think it does not
