And then, in that moment of strange and solemn splendour, when the things of the other world appear to be as real as the things of this one, it seemed as if the Ballamoars were calling to him! Four hundred years of the dead Ballamoars were calling to the last of their sons--"_Do the right!_" "I must marry that girl," he told himself. But at the next moment there came, with the shock of a blow, the memory of his mother. Marriage had always been associated in his mind with such different conditions. Such a different woman; somebody who would be your equal, perhaps your superior; somebody who would sustain and inspire you; somebody who would help you feel the throbbing pulse of life, and listen to all the suffering hearts that beat; somebody who, if she had to go before you, would leave behind her, for as long as your life should last, the fragrance of flowers and the halo of a holy saint. That was marriage as he had always thought of it. And now this girl--illiterate, inadequate, with that mother, that father .... in the presence of the Deemster .... the home of Isobel Stanley .... Oh, God! Then a mocking voice seemed to say, "Good Lord, what a joke! If every man who ever made a tragic blunder (there have been hundreds of thousands of you) had acted on your exaggerated sense of responsibility, what a mess the old world would be in by this time! Why, there is scarcely a man alive who would not laugh at you and call you a fool." "Let them," he thought, for louder at that moment than any other voice was the voice that cried, "_Do the right!_" The marriage need not take place immediately. Bessie could be educated. She was bright; there was no saying how quickly she might develop. That would soften the blow to his father, and anyhow the Deemster would see that he was trying to be true to his blood, his race. "Yes, yes, I must do the right; whatever it may cost me." But then came another chilling thought. Love! There could be no love in such a marriage. This brought, with the pain of a bleeding wound, the memory of Fenella. In spite of all he had said to himself through so many years he had never really been reconciled to the loss of her. Down in some dark and secret chamber of his consciousness there had always been a phantom hope that notwithstanding her devotion to her work for women, and the dedication to celibacy (as stern as the consecration of the veil) which she believed to be demanded by it, Fenella would return to the island, and his great love would be rewarded. That had been the real cause of his idleness. He had been waiting, waiting, waiting for Fenella to come back and make it worth while .... and now .... by his own act .... the consequences of it .... Oh, God! Oh, God! For the first time, save once since he was a child, he felt tears in his eyes, but he brushed them away impatiently. "It's too late to think of that now," he thought.