May I speak to you of Lord Harry ?" "How can you doubt it!" "My dear, this is a delicate subject for me to enter on." "And a shameful subject for me!" Iris broke out bitterly.

"Hugh! you are an angel, by comparison with that man--how debased I must be to love him--how unworthy of your good opinion! Ask me anything you like; have no mercy on me.

Oh," she cried, with reckless contempt for herself, "why don't you beat me?
I deserve it!" Mountjoy was well enough acquainted with the natures of women to pass over that passionate outbreak, instead of fanning the flame in her by reasoning and remonstrance.
"Your father will not listen to the expression of feeling," he continued; "but it is possible to rouse his sense of justice by the expression of facts.

Help me to speak to him more plainly of Lord Harry than you could speak in your letters.

I want to know what has happened, from the time when events at Ardoon brought you and the young lord together again, to the time when you left him in Ireland after my brother's death.