To be free to choose for himself in all things, was the highest privilege of man.

What pleasure could he have in a love which should be selected for him by such a woman as his aunt?
Then he gave the reins to some confused notion of an Irish bride, a wife who should be half a wife and half not,--whom he would love and cherish tenderly but of whose existence no English friend should be aware.

How could he more charmingly indulge his spirit of adventure than by some such arrangement as this?
He knew that he had given a pledge to his uncle to contract no marriage that would be derogatory to his position.

He knew also that he had given a pledge to the priest that he would do no harm to Kate O'Hara.

He felt that he was bound to keep each pledge.