offer, on the ground that she was yet much too young to think of a
wedding-ring. To the rival Captain, old enough to be her father, a man,
moreover, whose evil living and Satanic temper were notorious, she
showed the utmost aversion. "I hate him," she protested in tears to her
father, who supported his suit; "and I would rather die a hundred times
than marry him."

But "Beau Power" was the last man to be moved from his purpose by a
child's tears or pleadings. Captain Farmer was a man of wealth and good
family, and also one of his own boon companions. And thus, tearful,
indignant, protesting to the last, the girl was led to the altar, by the
biggest scoundrel in Tipperary--a "maiden tribute" to a lover's lust and
a father's ambition.

[Illustration: MARGUERITE, COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON]

The child's fears were more than realised in the wedded life that
followed. Before the honeymoon had waned, the Captain began to treat his
young wife with all the brutality of which he was such a past-master.
Blows and oaths were her daily lot; and when his cruelty wrung tears
from her, her husband would lock her in her room, and leave her for
days, without fire or food, until she condescended to beg for mercy.

After three months of this inferno the Captain was ordered to a distant
station; and, as his wife refused point-blank to accompany him, was by
no means reluctant to "be rid of the brat" by sending her back to her
home. Here, however, the child-wife found herself less welcome than, and
almost as unhappy as in her wedded life; and, driven to despair, she
left the home in which she had been cradled, and fared forth alone into
the world, which could not be more unkind than those whose duty it was