"Two!" proceeded my father, after waiting a little.
Mary put her trembling lips to my ear, and whispered: "Let me go, George! I can't bear to see it. Oh, look how he frowns! I know he'll hurt you."
My father lifted his forefinger as a preliminary warning before he counted Three.
"Stop!" cried Dame Dermody.
My father looked round at her again with sardonic astonishment.
"I beg your pardon, ma'am--have you anything particular to say to me?" he asked.
"Man!" returned the Sibyl, "you speak lightly. Have I spoken lightly to You? I warn you to bow your wicked will before a Will that is mightier than yours. The spirits of these children are kindred spirits. For time and for eternity they are united one to the other. Put land and sea between them--they will still be together; they will communicate in visions, they will be revealed to each other in dreams. Bind them by worldly ties; wed your son, in the time to come, to another woman, and my grand-daughter to another man. In vain! I tell you, in vain! You may doom them to misery, you may drive them to sin--the day of their union on earth is still a day predestined in heaven. It will come! it will come! Submit, while the time for submission is yours. You are a doomed man. I see the shadow of disaster, I see the seal of death, on your face. Go; and leave these consecrated ones to walk the dark ways of the world together, in the strength of their innocence, in the light of their love. Go--and God forgive you!" In spite of himself, my father was struck by the irresistible strength of conviction which inspired those words. The bailiff's mother had impressed him as a tragic actress might have impressed him on the stage. She had checked the mocking answer on his lips, but she had not shaken his iron will. His face was as hard as ever when he turned my way once more.
"The last chance, George, " he said, and counted the last number: "Three!"
I neither moved nor answered him.
"You will have it?" he said, as he fastened his hold on my arm.
I fastened my hold on Mary; I whispered to her, "I won't leave you!" She seemed not to hear me. She trembled from head to foot in my arms. A faint cry of terror fluttered from her lips. Dermody instantly stepped forward. Before my father could wrench me away from her, he had said in my ear, "You can give her to me, Master George," and had released his child from my embrace. She stretched her little frail hands out yearningly to me, as she lay in Dermody's arms. "Good-by, dear," she said, faintly. I saw her head sink on her father's bosom as I was dragged to the door. In my helpless rage and misery, I struggled against the cruel hands that had got me with all the strength I had left. I cried out to her, "I love you, Mary! I will come back to you, Mary! I will never marry any one but you!" Step by step, I was forced further and further away. The last I saw of her, my darling's head was still resting on Dermody's breast. Her grandmother stood near, and shook her withered hands at my father, and shrieked her terrible prophecy, in the hysteric frenzy that possessed her when she saw the separation accomplished. "Go!--you go to your ruin! you go to your death!" While her voice still rang in my ears, the cottage door was opened and closed again. It was all over. The modest world of my boyish love and my boyish joy disappeared like the vision of a dream. The empty outer wilderness, which was my father's world, opened before me void of love and void of joy. God forgive me--how I hated him at that moment!