I hope Kate is well ?" "She is not well.

How should she be well ?" "Why not?
I didn't know.

If there is anything that she wants that I can get for her, you have only to speak." In the utter contempt which Mrs.O'Hara now felt for the man she probably forgot that his immediate situation was one in which it was nearly impossible that any man should conduct himself with dignity.
Having brought himself to his present pass by misconduct, he could discover no line of good conduct now open to him.

Moralists might tell him that let the girl's parentage be what it might, he ought to marry her; but he was stopped from that, not only by his oath, but by a conviction that his highest duty required him to preserve his family from degradation.

And yet to a mother, with such a demand on her lips as that now made by Mrs.O'Hara,--whose demand was backed by such circumstances,--how was it possible that he should tell the truth and plead the honour of his family?
His condition was so cruel that it was no longer possible to him to be dignified or even true.