CHAPTER XXIV

AFTER BREAKFAST AT HAP HOUSE

"I don't think he will," said Mr. Prendergast; and as he spoke, Captain Donnellan's ear could detect that there was something approaching to sarcasm in the tone of the old man's voice. The Captain was quite sure that his friend would not be even at the heel of the hunt that day; and without further compunction proceeded to fasten his buckskin gloves round his wrists. The meet was so near to them, that they had both intended to ride their own hunters from the door; and the two nags were now being led up and down upon the gravel.

But at this moment a terrible noise was heard to take place in the hall. There was a rush and crushing there which made even Mr. Prendergast to jump from his chair, and drove Captain Donnellan to forget his gloves and run to the door.

It was as though all the winds of heaven were being driven down the passage, and as though each separate wind was shod with heavy-heeled boots. Captain Donnellan ran to the door, and Mr. Prendergast with slower steps followed him. When it was opened, Owen was to be seen in the hall, apparently in a state of great excitement; and the gentleman whom he had lately asked to breakfast,--he was to be seen also, in a position of unmistakable discomfort. He was at that moment proceeding, with the utmost violence, into a large round bed of bushes, which stood in the middle of the great sweep before the door of the house, his feet just touching the ground as he went; and then, having reached his bourne, he penetrated face foremost into the thicket, and in an instant disappeared. He had been kicked out of the house. Owen Fitzgerald had taken him by the shoulders, with a run along the passage and hall, and having reached the door, had applied the flat of his foot violently to poor Aby's back, and sent him flying down the stone steps. And now, as Captain Donnellan and Mr. Prendergast stood looking on, Mr. Mollett junior buried himself altogether out of sight among the shrubs.

"You have done for that fellow, at any rate, Owen," said Captain Donnellan, glancing for a moment at Mr. Prendergast. "I should say that he will never get out of that alive."

"Not if he wait till I pick him out," said Owen, breathing very hard after his exertion. "An infernal scoundrel! And now, Mr. Prendergast, if you are ready, sir, I am." It was as much as he could do to finish these few words with that sang froid which he desired to assume, so violent was his attempt at breathing after his late exercise.

It was impossible not to conceive the idea that, as one disagreeable visitor had been disposed of in a somewhat summary fashion, so might be the other also. Mr. Prendergast did not look like a man who was in the habit of leaving gentlemen's houses in the manner just now adopted by Mr. Mollett; but nevertheless, as they had come together, both unwished for and unwelcome, Captain Donnellan did for a moment bethink himself whether there might not be more of such fun, if he remained there on the spot. At any rate, it would not do for him to go to the hunt while such deeds as these were being done. It might be that his assistance would be wanted.

Mr. Prendergast smiled, with a saturnine and somewhat bitter smile--the nearest approach to a laugh in which he was known to indulge,--for the same notion came also into his head. "He has disposed of him, and now he is thinking how he will dispose of me." Such was Mr. Prendergast's thought about the matter; and that made him smile. And then, too, he was pleased at what he had seen. That this Mollett was the son of that other Mollett, with whom he had been closeted at Castle Richmond, was plain enough; it was plain enough also to him, used as he was to trace out in his mind the courses of action which men would follow, that Mollett junior, having heard of his father's calamitous failure at Castle Richmond, had come down to Hap House to see what he could make out of the hitherto unconscious heir. It had been matter of great doubt with Mr. Prendergast, when he first heard young Mollett's name mentioned, whether or no he would allow him to make his attempt. He, Mr. Prendergast, could by a word have spoilt the game; but acting, as he was forced to act, on the spur of the moment, he resolved to permit Mr. Mollett junior to play out his play. He would be yet in time to prevent any ill result to Mr. Fitzgerald, should that gentleman be weak enough to succumb to any such ill results. As things had now turned out Mr. Prendergast rejoiced that Mr. Mollett junior had been permitted to play out his play. "And now, Mr. Prendergast, if you are ready, I am," said Owen.

"Perhaps we had better first pick up the gentleman among the trees," said Mr. Prendergast. And he and Captain Donnellan went down into the bushes.

"Do as you please about that," said Owen. "I have touched him once and shall not touch him again." And he walked back into the dining-room.

One of the grooms who were leading the horses had now gone to the assistance of the fallen hero; and as Captain Donnellan also had already penetrated as far as Aby's shoulders, Mr. Prendergast, thinking that he was not needed, returned also to the house. "I hope he is not seriously hurt," he said.

"Not he," said Owen. "Those sort of men are as used to be kicked, as girls are to be kissed; and it comes as naturally to them. But anything short of having his bones broken will be less than he deserves."

"May I ask what was the nature of his offence?"

Owen remained silent for a moment, looking his guest full in the face. "Well; not exactly," said he. "He has been talking of people of whom he knows nothing, but it would not be well for me to repeat what he has said to a perfect stranger."

"Quite right, Mr. Fitzgerald; it would not be well. But there can be no harm in my repeating it to you. He came here to get money from you for certain tidings which he brought; tidings which if true would be of great importance to you. As I take it, however, he has altogether failed in his object."

"And how do you come to know all this, sir?"

"Merely from having heard that man mention his own name. I also have come with the same tidings; and as I ask for no money for communicating them, you may believe them to be true on my telling."

"What tidings?" asked Owen, with a frown, and an angry jerk in his voice. No remotest notion had yet come in upon his mind that there was any truth in the story that had been told him. He had looked upon it all as a lie, and had regarded Mollett as a sorry knave who had come to him with a poor and low attempt at raising a few pounds. And even now he did not believe. Mr. Prendergast's words had been too sudden to produce belief of so great a fact, and his first thought was that an endeavour was being made to fool him.

"Those tidings which that man has told you," said Mr. Prendergast, solemnly. "That you should not have believed them from him shows only your discretion. But from me you may believe them. I have come from Castle Richmond, and am here as a messenger from Sir Thomas,--from Sir Thomas and from his son. When the matter became clear to them both, then it was felt that you also should be made acquainted with it."

Owen Fitzgerald now sat down, and looked up into the lawyer's face, staring at him. I may say that the power of saying much was for the moment taken away from him by the words that he heard. What! was it really possible that that title, that property, that place of honour in the country was to be his when one frail old man should drop away? And then again was it really true that all this immeasurable misery was to fall--had fallen--upon that family whom he had once known so well? It was but yesterday that he had been threatening all manner of evil to his cousin Herbert; and had his threats been proved true so quickly? But there was no shadow of triumph in his feelings. Owen Fitzgerald was a man of many faults. He was reckless, passionate, prone to depreciate the opinion of others, extravagant in his thoughts and habits, ever ready to fight, both morally and physically, those who did not at a moment's notice agree with him. He was a man who would at once make up his mind that the world was wrong when the world condemned him, and who would not in compliance with any argument allow himself to be so. But he was not avaricious, nor cruel, nor self-seeking, nor vindictive. In his anger he could pronounce all manner of ill things against his enemy, as he had pronounced some ill things against Herbert; but it was not in him to keep up a sustained wish that those ill things should really come to pass. This news which he now heard, and which he did not yet fully credit, struck him with awe, but created no triumph in his bosom. He realized the catastrophe as it affected his cousins of Castle Richmond rather than as it affected himself.

"Do you mean to say that Lady Fitzgerald--" and then he stopped himself. He had not the courage to ask the question which was in his mind. Could it really be the case that Lady Fitzgerald,--that she whom all the world had so long honoured under that name, was in truth the wife of that man's father,--of the father of that wretch whom he had just spurned from his house? The tragedy was so deep that he could not believe in it.

"We fear that it is so, Mr. Fitzgerald," said Mr. Prendergast. "That it certainly is so I cannot say. And therefore, if I may take the liberty to give you counsel, I would advise you not to make too certain of this change in your prospects."

"Too certain!" said he, with a bitter laugh. "Do you suppose then that I would wish to see all this ruin accomplished? Heavens and earth! Lady Fitzgerald--! I cannot believe it."

And then Captain Donnellan also returned to the room. "Fitzgerald," said he, "what the mischief are we to do with this fellow? He says that he can't walk, and he bleeds from his face like a pig."

"What fellow? Oh, do what you like with him. Here: give him a pound note, and let him go to the d----. And Donnellan, for heaven's sake go to Cecilstown at once. Do not wait for me. I have business that will keep me here all day."

"But I do not know what to do with this fellow that's bleeding," said the captain, piteously, as he took the proffered note. "If he puts up with a pound note for what you've done to him, he's softer than what I take him for."

"He will be very glad to be allowed to escape without being given up to the police," said Mr. Prendergast.

"But I don't know what to do with him," said Captain Donnellan. "He says that he can't stand."

"Then lay him down on the dunghill," said Owen Fitzgerald; "but for heaven's sake do not let him interrupt me. And, Donnellan, you will altogether lose the day if you stay any longer." Whereupon the captain, seeing that in very truth he was not wanted, did take himself off, casting as he went one farewell look on Aby as he lay groaning on the turf on the far side of the tuft of bushes.

"He's kilt intirely, I'm thinking, yer honor," said Thady, who was standing over him on the other side.

"He'll come to life again before dinner-time," said the Captain.

"Oh, in course he'll do that, yer honor," said Thady; and then added sotto voce, to himself, as the captain rode down the avenue, "Faix, an' I don't know about that. Shure an' it's the masther has a heavy hand." And then Thady stood for a while perplexed, endeavouring to reanimate Aby by a sight of the pound note which he held out visibly between his thumb and fingers.

And now Mr. Prendergast and Owen were again alone. "And what am I to do?" said Owen, after a pause of a minute or two; and he asked the question with a serious, solemn voice.

"Just for the present--for the next day or two--I think that you should do nothing. As soon as the first agony of this time is over at Castle Richmond, I think that Herbert should see you. It would be very desirable that he and you should take in concert such proceedings as will certainly become necessary. The absolute proof of the truth of this story must be obtained. You understand, I hope, Mr. Fitzgerald, that the case still admits of doubt."

Owen nodded his head impatiently, as though it were needless on the part of Mr. Prendergast to insist upon this. He did not wish to take it for true a moment sooner than was necessary.

"It is my duty to give you this caution. Many lawyers--I presume you know that I am a lawyer--"

"I did not know it," said Owen; "but it makes no difference."

"Thank you; that's very kind," said Mr. Prendergast; but the sarcasm was altogether lost upon his hearer. "Some lawyers, as I was saying, would in such a case have advised their clients to keep all their suspicions, nay all their knowledge, to themselves. Why play the game of an adversary? they would ask. But I have thought it better that we should have no adversary."

"And you will have none," said Owen; "none in me, at least."

"I am much gratified in so perceiving, and in having such evidence that my advice has not been indiscreet. It occurred to me that if you received the first intimation of these circumstances from other sources, you would be bound on your own behalf to employ an agent to look after your own interests."

"I should have done nothing of the kind," said Owen.

"Ah, but, my dear young friend, in such a case it would have been your duty to do so."

"Then I should have neglected my duty. And do you tell Herbert this from me, that let the truth be what it may, I shall never interrupt him in his title or his property. It is not there that I shall look either for justice or revenge. He will understand what I mean."

But Mr. Prendergast did not, by any means; nor did he enter into the tone of Owen Fitzgerald's mind. They were both just men, but just in an essentially different manner. The justice of Mr. Prendergast had come of thought and education. As a young man, when entering on his profession, he was probably less just than he was now. He had thought about matters of law and equity, till thought had shown to him the beauty of equity as it should be practised,--often by the aid of law, and not unfrequently in spite of law. Such was the justice of Mr. Prendergast. That of Owen Fitzgerald had come of impulse and nature, and was the justice of a very young man rather than of a very wise one. That title and property did not, as he felt, of justice belong to him, but to his cousin. What difference could it make in the true justice of things, whether or no that wretched man was still alive whom all the world had regarded as dead? In justice he ought to be dead. Now that this calamity of the man's life had fallen upon Sir Thomas and Lady Fitzgerald and his cousin Herbert, it would not be for him to aggravate it by seizing upon a heritage which might possibly accrue to him under the letter of the world's law, but which could not accrue to him under heaven's law. Such was the justice of Owen Fitzgerald; and we may say this of it in its dispraise, as comparing it with that other justice, that whereas that of Mr. Prendergast would wear for ever, through ages and ages, that other justice of Owen's would hardly have stood the pull of a ten years' struggle. When children came to him, would he not have thought of what might have been theirs by right; and then have thought of what ought to be theirs by right; and so on?

But in speaking of justice, he had also spoken of revenge, and Mr. Prendergast was altogether in the dark. What revenge? He did not know that poor Owen had lost a love, and that Herbert had found it. In the midst of all the confused thoughts which this astounding intelligence had brought upon him, Owen still thought of his love. There Herbert had robbed him--robbed him by means of his wealth; and in that matter he desired justice--justice or revenge. He wanted back his love. Let him have that and Herbert might yet be welcome to his title and estates.

Mr. Prendergast remained there for some half-hour longer, explaining what ought to be done, and how it ought to be done. Of course he combated that idea of Owen's, that the property might be allowed to remain in the hands of the wrong heir. Had that been consonant with his ideas of justice he would not have made his visit to Hap House this morning. Right must have its way, and if it should be that Lady Fitzgerald's marriage with Sir Thomas had not been legal, Owen, on Sir Thomas's death, must become Sir Owen, and Herbert could not become Sir Herbert. So much to the mind of Mr. Prendergast was as clear as crystal. Let justice be done, even though these Castle Richmond heavens should fall in ruins.

And then he took his departure, leaving Owen to his solitude, much perplexed. "And where is that man?" Mr. Prendergast asked, as he got on to his car.

"Bedad thin, yer honor, he's very bad intirely. He's jist sitthing over the kitchen fire, moaning and croning this way and that, but sorrow a word he's spoke since the masther hoisted him out o' the big hall door. And thin for blood--why, saving yer honer's presence, he's one mash of gore."

"You'd better wash his face for him, and give him a little tea," said Mr. Prendergast, and then he drove away.

And strange ideas floated across Owen Fitzgerald's brain as he sat there alone, in his hunting gear, leaning on the still covered breakfast-table. They floated across his brain backwards and forwards, and at last remained there, taking almost the form of a definite purpose. He would make a bargain with Herbert, let each of them keep that which was fairly his own; let Herbert have all the broad lands of Castle Richmond; let him have the title, the seat in parliament, and the county honour; but for him, Owen--let him have Clara Desmond. He desired nothing that was not fairly his own; but as his own he did regard her, and without her he did not know how to face the future of his life. And in suggesting this arrangement to himself, he did not altogether throw over her feelings; he did take into account her heart, though he did not take into account her worldly prospects. She had loved him--him--Owen; and he would not teach himself to believe that she did not love him still. Her mother had been too powerful for her, and she had weakly yielded, but as to her heart--Owen could not bring himself to believe that that was gone from him.

They two would make a bargain,--he and his cousin. Honour and renown, and the money and the title would be everything to his cousin. Herbert had been brought up to expect these things, and all the world around him had expected them for him. It would be terrible to him to find himself robbed of them. But the loss of Clara Desmond was equally terrible to Owen Fitzgerald. He allowed his heart to fill itself with a romantic sense of honour, teaching him that it behoved him as a man not to give up his love. Without her he would live disgraced in his own estimation; but who would not think the better of him for refraining from the possession of those Castle Richmond acres? Yes; he would make a bargain with Herbert. Who was there in the world to deny his right to do so?

As he sat revolving these things in his mind, he suddenly heard a rushing sound, as of many horsemen down the avenue, and going to the window, he saw two or three leading men of the hunt, accompanied by the grey-haired old huntsman; and through and about and under the horsemen were the dogs, running in and out of the laurels which skirted the road, with their noses down, giving every now and then short yelps as they caught up the uncertain scent from the leaves on the ground, and hurried on upon the trail of their game.

"Yo ho! to him, Messenger; hark to him Maybird; good bitch, Merrylass. He's down here, gen'lemen, and he'll never get away alive. He came to a bad place when he looked out for going to ground anywhere near Mr. Owen."

And then there came, fast trotting down through the other horsemen, making his way eagerly to the front, a stout heavy man, with a florid handsome face and eager eye. He might be some fifty years of age, but no lad there of three-and-twenty was so anxious and impetuous as he. He was riding a large-boned, fast-trotting bay horse, that pressed on as eagerly as his rider. As he hurried forward all made way for him, till he was close to the shrubs in the front of the house.

"Bless my soul, gentlemen," he said, in an angry voice, "how, in the name of all that's good, are hounds to hunt if you press them down the road in that way? By heavens, Barry, you are enough to drive a man wild. Yoicks, Merrylass! there it is, Pat;"--Pat was the huntsman--"outside the low wall there, down towards the river." This was Sam O'Grady, the master of the Duhallow hounds, the god of Owen's idolatry. No better fellow ever lived, and no master of hounds, so good; such at least was the opinion common among Duhallow sportsmen.

"Yes, yer honer,--he did skirt round there, I knows that; but he's been among them laurels at the bottom, and he'll be about the place and outhouses somewhere. There's a drain here that I knows on, and he knows on. But Mr. Owen, he knows on it too; and there ain't a chance for him." So argued Pat, the Duhallow huntsman, the experienced craft of whose aged mind enabled him to run counter to the cutest dodges of the cutest fox in that and any of the three neighbouring baronies.

And now the sweep before the door was crowded with red coats; and Owen, looking from his dining-room window, felt that he must take some step. As an ordinary rule, had the hunt thus drifted near his homestead, he would have been off his horse and down among his bottles, sending up sherry and cherry-brandy; and there would have been comfortable drink in plenty, and cold meat, perhaps, not in plenty; and every one would have been welcome in and out of the house. But now there was that at his heart which forbade him to mix with the men who knew him so well, and among whom he was customarily so loudly joyous. Dressed as he was, he could not go among them without explaining why he had remained at home; and as to that, he felt that he was not able to give any explanation at the present moment.

"What's the matter with Owen?" said one fellow to Captain Donnellan.

"Upon my word I hardly know. Two chaps came to him this morning, before he was up; about business, they said. He nearly murdered one of them out of hand; and I believe that he's locked up somewhere with the other this minute."

But in the mean time a servant came up to Mr. O'Grady, and, touching his hat, asked the master of the hunt to go into the house for a moment; and then Mr. O'Grady, dismounting, entered in through the front door. He was only there two minutes, for his mind was still outside, among the laurels, with the fox; but as he put his foot again into the stirrup, he said to those around him that they must hurry away, and not disturb Owen Fitzgerald that day. It may, therefore, easily be imagined that the mystery would spread quickly through that portion of the county of Cork.

They must hurry away;--but not before they could give an account of their fox. Neither for gods nor men must he be left, as long as his skin was whole above ground. There is an importance attaching to the pursuit of a fox, which gives it a character quite distinct from that of any other amusement which men follow in these realms. It justifies almost anything that men can do, and that at any place and in any season. There is about it a sanctity which forbids interruption, and makes its votaries safe under any circumstances of trespass or intrusion. A man in a hunting county who opposes the county hunt must be a misanthrope, willing to live in seclusion, fond of being in Coventry, and in love with the enmity of his fellow-creatures. There are such men, but they are regarded as lepers by those around them. All this adds to the nobleness of the noble sport, and makes it worthy of a man's energies.

And then the crowd of huntsmen hurried round from the front of the house to a paddock at the back, and then again through the stable yard to the front. The hounds were about--here, there, and everywhere, as any one ignorant of the craft would have said, but still always on the scent of that doomed beast. From one thicket to another he tried to hide himself, but the moist leaves of the underwood told quickly of his whereabouts. He tried every hole and cranny about the house, but every hole and corner had been stopped by Owen's jealous care. He would have lived disgraced for ever in his own estimation, had a fox gone to ground anywhere about his domicile. At last a loud whoop was heard just in front of the hall door. The poor fox, with his last gasp of strength, had betaken himself to the thicket before the door, and there the hounds had killed him, at the very spot on which Aby Mollett had fallen.

Standing well back from the window, still thinking of Clara Desmond, Owen Fitzgerald saw the fate of the hunted animal; he saw the pate and tail severed from the carcase by old Pat, and the body thrown to the hounds,--a ceremony over which he had presided so many scores of times; and then, when the hounds had ceased to growl over the bloody fragments, he saw the hunt move away, back along the avenue to the high road. All this he saw, but still he was thinking of Clara Desmond.

CHAPTER XXV

A MUDDY WALK ON A WET MORNING

All that day of the hunt was passed very quietly at Castle Richmond. Herbert did not once leave the house, having begged Mr. Somers to make his excuse at a Relief Committee which it would have been his business to attend. A great portion of the day he spent with his father, who lay all but motionless, in a state that was apparently half comatose. During all those long hours very little was said between them about this tragedy of their family. Why should more be said now; now that the worst had befallen them--all that worst, to hide which Sir Thomas had endured such superhuman agony? And then four or five times during the day he went to his mother, but with her he did not stay long. To her he could hardly speak upon any subject, for to her as yet the story had not been told.

And she, when he thus came to her from time to time, with a soft word or two, or a softer kiss, would ask him no question. She knew that he had learned the whole, and knew also from the solemn cloud on his brow that that whole must be very dreadful. Indeed we may surmise that her woman's heart had by this time guessed somewhat of the truth. But she would inquire of no one. Jones, she was sure, knew it all, but she did not ask a single question of her servant. It would be told to her when it was fitting. Why should she move in the matter?

Whenever Herbert entered her room she tried to receive him with something of a smile. It was clear enough that she was always glad of his coming, and that she made some little show of welcoming him. A book was always put away, very softly and by the slightest motion; but Herbert well knew what that book was, and whence his mother sought that strength which enabled her to live through such an ordeal as this.

And his sisters were to be seen, moving slowly about the house like the very ghosts of their former selves. Their voices were hardly heard; no ring of customary laughter ever came from the room in which they sat, when they passed their brother in the house they hardly dared to whisper to him. As to sitting down at table now with Mr. Prendergast, that effort was wholly abandoned; they kept themselves even from the sound of his footsteps.

Aunt Letty perhaps spoke more than the others, but what could she speak to the purpose? "Herbert," she once said, as she caught him close by the door of the library and almost pulled him into the room--"Herbert, I charge you to tell me what all this is!"

"I can tell you nothing, dear aunt, nothing;--nothing as yet."

"But, Herbert, tell me this; is it about my sister?" For very many years past Aunt Letty had always called Lady Fitzgerald her sister.

"I can tell you nothing;--nothing to-day."

"Then, to-morrow."

"I do not know--we must let Mr. Prendergast manage this matter as he will. I have taken nothing on myself, Aunt Letty--nothing."

"Then I tell you what, Herbert; it will kill me. It will kill us all, as it is killing your father and your darling mother. I tell you that it is killing her fast. Human nature cannot bear it. For myself I could endure anything if I were trusted." And sitting down in one of the high-backed library chairs she burst into a flood of tears; a sight which, as regarded Aunt Letty, Herbert had never seen before.

What if they all died? thought Herbert to himself in the bitterness of the moment. There was that in store for some of them which was worse than death. What business had Aunt Letty to talk of her misery? Of course she was wretched, as they all were; but how could she appreciate the burden that was on his back? What was Clara Desmond to her?

Shortly after noon Mr. Prendergast was back at the house; but he slunk up to his room, and no one saw anything of him. At half-past six he came down, and Herbert constrained himself to sit at the table while dinner was served; and so the day passed away. One more day only Mr. Prendergast was to stay at Castle Richmond; and then, if, as he expected, certain letters should reach him on that morning, he was to start for London late on the following day. It may well be imagined that he was not desirous of prolonging his visit.

Early on the following morning Herbert started for a long solitary walk. On that day Mr. Prendergast was to tell everything to his mother, and it was determined between them that her son should not be in the house during the telling. In the evening, when he came home, he was to see her. So he started on his walk, resolving some other things also in his mind before he went. He would reach Desmond Court before he returned home that day, and let the two ladies there know the fate that was before them. Then, after that, they might let him know what was to be his fate;--but on this head he would not hurry them.

So he started on his walk, resolving to go round by Gortnaclough on his way to Desmond Court, and then to return home from that place. The road would be more than twenty long Irish miles; but he felt that the hard work would be of service. It was instinct rather than thought which taught him that it would be good for him to put some strain on the muscles of his body, and thus relieve the muscles of his mind. If his limbs could become thoroughly tired,--thoroughly tired so that he might wish to rest--then he might hope that for a moment he might cease to think of all this sorrow which encompassed him.

So he started on his walk, taking with him a thick cudgel and his own thoughts. He went away across the demesne and down into the road that led away by Gortnaclough and Boherbue towards Castleisland and the wilds of county Kerry. As he went, the men about the place refrained from speaking to him, for they all knew that bad news had come to the big house. They looked at him with lowered eyes and with tenderness in their hearts, for they loved the very name of Fitzgerald. The love which a poor Irishman feels for the gentleman whom he regards as his master--"his masther," though he has probably never received from him, in money, wages for a day's work, and in all his intercourse has been the man who has paid money and not the man who received it--the love which he nevertheless feels, if he has been occasionally looked on with a smiling face and accosted with a kindly word, is astonishing to an Englishman. I will not say that the feeling is altogether good. Love should come of love. Where personal love exists on one side, and not even personal regard on the other, there must be some mixture of servility. That unbounded respect for human grandeur cannot be altogether good; for human greatness, if the greatness be properly sifted, it may be so.

He got down into the road, and went forth upon his journey at a rapid pace. The mud was deep upon the way, but he went through the thickest without a thought of it. He had not been out long before there came on a cold, light, drizzling rain, such a rain as gradually but surely makes its way into the innermost rag of a man's clothing, running up the inside of his waterproof coat, and penetrating by its perseverance the very folds of his necktie. Such cold, drizzling rain is the commonest phase of hard weather during Irish winters, and those who are out and about get used to it and treat it tenderly. They are euphemistical as to the weather, calling it hazy and soft, and never allowing themselves to carry bad language on such a subject beyond the word dull. And yet at such a time one breathes the rain and again exhales it, and become as it were oneself a water spirit, assuming an aqueous fishlike nature into one's inner fibres. It must be acknowledged that a man does sometimes get wet in Ireland; but then a wetting there brings no cold in the head, no husky voice, no need for multitudinous pocket-handkerchiefs, as it does here in this land of catarrhs. It is the east wind and not the rain that kills; and of east wind in the south of Ireland they know nothing.

But Herbert walked on quite unmindful of the mist, swinging his thick stick in his hand, and ever increasing his pace as he went. He was usually a man careful of such things, but it was nothing to him now whether he were wet or dry. His mind was so full of the immediate circumstances of his destiny that he could not think of small external accidents. What was to be his future life in this world, and how was he to fight the battle that was now before him? That was the question which he continually asked himself, and yet never succeeded in answering. How was he to come down from the throne on which early circumstances had placed him, and hustle and struggle among the crowd for such approach to other thrones as his sinews and shoulders might procure for him? If he had been only born to the struggle, he said to himself, how easy and pleasant it would have been to him! But to find himself thus cast out from his place by an accident--cast out with the eyes of all the world upon him; to be talked of, and pointed at, and pitied; to have little aids offered him by men whom he regarded as beneath him--all this was terribly sore, and the burden was almost too much for his strength. "I do not care for the money," he said to himself a dozen times; and in saying so he spoke in one sense truly. But he did care for things which money buys; for outward respect, permission to speak with authority among his fellow-men, for power and place, and the feeling that he was prominent in his walk of life. To be in advance of other men, that is the desire which is strongest in the hearts of all strong men; and in that desire how terrible a fall had he not received from this catastrophe!

And what were they all to do, he and his mother and his sisters? How were they to act--now, at once? In what way were they to carry themselves when this man of law and judgment should have gone from them? For himself, his course of action must depend much upon the word which might be spoken to him to-day at Desmond Court. There would still be a drop of comfort left at the bottom of his cup if he might be allowed to hope there. But in truth he feared greatly. What the countess would say to him he thought he could foretell; what it would behove him to say himself--in matter, though not in words--that he knew well. Would not the two sayings tally well together? and could it be right for him even to hope that the love of a girl of seventeen should stand firm against her mother's will, when her lover himself could not dare to press his suit? And then another reflection pressed on his mind sorely. Clara had already given up one poor lover at her mother's instance; might she not resume that lover, also at her mother's instance, now that he was no longer poor? What if Owen Fitzgerald should take from him everything!

And so he walked on through the mud and rain, always swinging his big stick. Perhaps, after all, the worst of it was over with him, when he could argue with himself in this way. It is the first plunge into the cold water that gives the shock. We may almost say that every human misery will cease to be miserable if it be duly faced; and something is done towards conquering our miseries, when we face them in any degree, even if not with due courage. Herbert had taken his plunge into the deep, dark, cold, comfortless pool of misfortune; and he felt that the waters around him were very cold. But the plunge had been taken, and the worst, perhaps, was gone by.

As he approached near to Gortnaclough, he came upon one of those gangs of road-destroyers who were now at work everywhere, earning their pittance of "yellow meal" with a pickaxe and a wheelbarrow. In some sort or other the labourers had been got to their work. Gangsmen there were with lists, who did see, more or less accurately, that the men, before they received their sixpence or eightpence for their day's work, did at any rate pass their day with some sort of tool in their hands. And consequently the surface of the hill began to disappear, and there were chasms in the orad, which caused those who travelled on wheels to sit still, staring across with angry eyes, and sometimes to apostrophize the doer of these deeds with very naughty words. The doer was the Board of Works, or the "Board" as it was familiarly termed; and were it not that those ill words must have returned to the bosoms which vented them, and have flown no further, no Board could ever have been so terribly curse-laden. To find oneself at last utterly stopped, after proceeding with great strain to one's horse for half a mile through an artificial quagmire of slush up to the wheelbox, is harassing to the customary traveller; and men at that crisis did not bethink themselves quite so frequently as they should have done, that a people perishing from famine is more harassing.

But Herbert was not on wheels, and was proceeding through the slush and across the chasm, regardless of it all, when he was stopped by some of the men. All the land thereabouts was Castle Richmond property; and it was not probable that the young master of it all would be allowed to pass through some two score of his own tenantry without greetings, and petitions, and blessings, and complaints.

"Faix, yer honer, thin, Mr. Herbert," said one man, standing at the bottom of the hill, with the half-filled wheelbarrow still hanging in his hands--an Englishman would have put down the barrow while he was speaking, making some inner calculation about the waste of his muscles; but an Irishman would despise himself for such low economy--"Faix, thin, yer honer, Mr. Herbert; an' it's yourself is a sight good for sore eyes. May the heavens be your bed, for it's you is the frind to a poor man."

"How are you, Pat?" said Herbert, without intending to stop. "How are you, Mooney? I hope the work suits you all." And then he would at once have passed on, with his hat pressed down low over his brow.

But this could be by no means allowed. In the first place, the excitement arising from the young master's presence was too valuable to be lost so suddenly; and then, when might again occur so excellent a time for some mention of their heavy grievances? Men whose whole amount of worldly good consists in a bare allowance of nauseous food, just sufficient to keep body and soul together, must be excused if they wish to utter their complaints to ears that can hear them.

"Arrah, yer honer, thin, we're none on us very well, and how could we, with the male at a penny a pound?" said Pat.

"Sorrow to it for male," said Mooney. "It's the worst vittles iver a man tooked into the inside of him. Saving yer honer's presence it's as much as I can do to raise the bare arm of me since the day I first began with the yally male."

"It's as wake as cats we all is," said another, who from the weary way in which he dragged his limbs about certainly did not himself seem to be gifted with much animal strength.

"And the childer is worse, yer honer," said a fourth. "The male is bad for them intirely. Saving yer honer's presence, their bellies is gone away most to nothing."

"And there's six of us in family, yer honer," said Pat. "Six mouths to feed; and what's eight pennorth of yally male among such a lot as that, let alone the Sundays, when there's nothing?"

"An' shure, Mr. Herbert," said another, a small man with a squeaking voice, whose rags of clothes hardly hung on to his body, "warn't I here with the other boys the last Friday as iver was? Ax Pat Condon else, yer honer; and yet when they comed to give out the wages, they sconced me of--." And so on. There were as many complaints to be made as there were men, if only he could bring himself to listen to them.

On ordinary occasions Herbert would listen to them, and answer them, and give them, at any rate, the satisfaction which they derived from discoursing with him, if he could give them no other satisfaction. But now, on this day, with his own burden so heavy at his heart, he could not even do this. He could not think of their sorrows; his own sorrow seemed to him to be so much the heavier. So he passed on, running the gauntlet through them as best he might, and shaking them off from him, as they attempted to cling round his steps. Nothing is so powerful in making a man selfish as misfortune.

And then he went on to Gortnaclough. He had not chosen his walk to this place with any fixed object, except this perhaps, that it enabled him to return home round by Desmond Court. It was one of the places at which a Relief Committee sat every fortnight, and there was a soup-kitchen here, which, however, had not been so successful as the one at Berryhill; and it was the place of residence selected by Father Barney's coadjutor. But in spite of all this, when Herbert found himself in the wretched, dirty, straggling, damp street of the village, he did not know what to do or where to betake himself. That every eye in Gortnaclough would be upon him was a matter of course. He could hardly turn round on his heel and retrace his steps through the village, as he would have to do in going to Desmond Court, without showing some pretext for his coming there; so he walked into the little shop which was attached to the soup-kitchen, and there he found the Rev. Mr. Columb Creagh, giving his orders to the little girl behind the counter.

Herbert Fitzgerald was customarily very civil to the Roman Catholic priests around him,--somewhat more so, indeed, than seemed good to those very excellent ladies, Mrs. Townsend and Aunt Letty; but it always went against the grain with him to be civil to the Rev. Columb Creagh; and on this special day it would have gone against the grain with him to be civil to anybody. But the coadjutor knew his character, and was delighted to have an opportunity of talking to him, when he could do so without being snubbed either by Mr. Somers, the chairman, or by his own parish priest. Mr. Creagh had rejoiced much at the idea of forming one at the same council board with county magistrates and Protestant parsons; but the fruition of his promised delights had never quite reached his lips. He had been like Sancho Panza in his government; he had sat down to the grand table day after day, but had never yet been allowed to enjoy the rich dish of his own oratory. Whenever he had proposed to help himself, Mr. Somers or Father Barney had stopped his mouth. Now probably he might be able to say a word or two; and though the glory would not be equal to that of making a speech at the Committee, still it would be something to be seen talking on equal terms, and on affairs of state, to the young heir of Castle Richmond.

"Mr. Fitzgerald! well, I declare! And how are you, sir?" And he took off his hat and bowed, and got hold of Herbert's hand, shaking it ruthlessly; and altogether he made him very disagreeable.

Herbert, though his mind was not really intent on the subject, asked some question of the girl as to the amount of meal that had been sold, and desired to see the little passbook that they kept at the shop.

"We are doing pretty well, Mr. Fitzgerald," said the coadjutor; "pretty well. I always keep my eye on, for fear things should go wrong, you know."

"I don't think they'll do that," said Herbert.

"No; I hope not. But it's always good to be on the safe side, you know. And to tell you the truth, I don't think we're altogether on the right tack about them shops. It's very hard on a poor woman--"

Now, the fact was, though the Relief Committee at Gortnaclough was attended by magistrates, priests, and parsons, the shop there was Herbert Fitzgerald's own affair. It had been stocked with his or his father's money; the flour was sold without profit at his risk, and the rent of the house and wages of the woman who kept it came out of his own pocket-money. Under these circumstances he did not see cause why Mr. Creagh should interfere, and at the present moment was not well inclined to put up with such interference.

"We do the best we can, Mr. Creagh," said he, interrupting the priest. "And no good will be done at such a time as this by unnecessary difficulties."

"No, no, certainly not. But still I do think--" And Mr. Creagh was girding up his loins for eloquence, when he was again interrupted.

"I am rather in a hurry to-day," said Herbert, "and therefore, if you please, we won't make any change now. Never mind the book to-day, Sally. Good day, Mr. Creagh." And so saying, he left the shop and walked rapidly back out of the village.

The poor coadjutor was left alone at the shop-door, anathematizing in his heart the pride of all Protestants. He had been told that this Mr. Fitzgerald was different from others, that he was a man fond of priests and addicted to the "ould religion;" and so hearing, he had resolved to make the most of such an excellent disposition. But he was forced to confess to himself that they were all alike. Mr. Somers could not have been more imperious, nor Mr. Townsend more insolent.

And then, through the still drizzling rain, Herbert walked on to Desmond Court. By the time that he reached the desolate-looking lodge at the demesne gate, he was nearly wet through, and was besmeared with mud up to his knees. But he had thought nothing of this as he walked along. His mind had been intent on the scene that was before him. In what words was he to break the news to Clara Desmond and her mother? and with what words would they receive the tidings? The former question he had by no means answered to his own satisfaction, when, all muddy and wet, he passed up to the house through that desolate gate.

"Is Lady Desmond at home?" he asked of the butler. "Her ladyship is at home," said the grey-haired old man, with his blandest smile, "and so is Lady Clara." He had already learned to look on the heir of Castle Richmond as the coming saviour of the impoverished Desmond family.

CHAPTER XXVI

COMFORTLESS

"But, Mr. Herbert, yer honor, you're wet through and through--surely," said the butler, as soon as Fitzgerald was well inside the hall. Herbert muttered something about his being only damp, and that it did not signify. But it did signify,--very much,--in the butler's estimation. Whose being wet through could signify more; for was not Mr. Herbert to be a baronet, and to have the spending of twelve thousand a-year; and would he not be the future husband of Lady Clara? not signify indeed!

"An' shure, Mr. Herbert, you haven't walked to Desmond Court this blessed morning. Tare an' ages! Well; there's no knowing what you young gentlemen won't do. But I'll see and get a pair of trousers of my Lord's ready for you in two minutes. Faix, and he's nearly as big as yourself, now, Mr. Herbert."

But Herbert would hardly speak to him, and gave no assent whatever as to his proposition for borrowing the Earl's clothes. "I'll go in as I am," said he. And the old man looking into his face saw that there was something wrong. "Shure an' he ain't going to sthrike off now," said this Irish Caleb Balderstone to himself. He also as well as some others about Desmond Court had feared greatly that Lady Clara would throw herself away upon a poor lover.

It was now past noon, and Fitzgerald pressed forward into the room in which Lady Clara usually sat. It was the same in which she had received Owen's visit, and here of a morning she was usually to be found alone; but on this occasion when he opened the door he found that her mother was with her. Since the day on which Clara had disposed of herself so excellently, the mother had spent more of her time with her daughter. Looking at Clara now through Herbert Fitzgerald's eyes, the Countess had began to confess to herself that her child did possess beauty and charm.

She got up to greet her future son-in-law with a sweet smile and that charming quiet welcome with which a woman so well knows how to make her house pleasant to a man that is welcome to it. And Clara, not rising, but turning her head round and looking at him, greeted him also. He came forward and took both their hands, and it was not till he had held Clara's for half a minute in his own that they both saw that he was more than ordinarily serious. "I hope Sir Thomas is not worse," said Lady Desmond, with that voice of feigned interest which is so common. After all, if anything should happen to the poor old weak gentleman, might it not be as well?

"My father has not been very well these last two days," he said.

"I am so sorry," said Clara. "And your mother, Herbert?"

"But, Herbert, how wet you are. You must have walked," said the Countess.

Herbert, in a few dull words, said that he had walked. He had thought that the walk would be good for him, and he had not expected that it would be so wet. And then Lady Desmond, looking carefully into his face, saw that in truth he was very serious;--so much so that she knew that he had come there on account of his seriousness. But still his sorrow did not in any degree go to her heart. He was grieving doubtless for his father,--or his mother. The house at Castle Richmond was probably sad, because sickness and fear of death were there;--nay, perhaps death itself now hanging over some loved head. But what was this to her? She had had her own sorrows;--enough of them perhaps to account for her being selfish. So with a solemn face, but with nothing amiss about her heart, she again asked for tidings from Castle Richmond.

"Do tell us," said Clara, getting up. "I am afraid Sir Thomas is very ill." The old baronet had been kind to her, and she did regard him. To her it was a sorrow to think that there should be any sorrow at Castle Richmond.

"Yes; he is ill," said Herbert. "We have had a gentleman from London with us for the last few days--a friend of my father's. His name is Mr. Prendergast."

"Is he a doctor?" asked the Countess.

"No, not a doctor," said Herbert. "He is a lawyer."

It was very hard for him to begin his story; and perhaps the more so in that he was wet through and covered with mud. He now felt cold and clammy, and began to have an idea that he should not be seated there in that room in such a guise. Clara, too, had instinctively learned from his face, and tone, and general bearirg that something truly was the matter. At other times when he had been there, since that day on which he had been accepted, he had been completely master of himself. Perhaps it had almost been deemed a fault in him that he had had none of the timidity or hesitation of a lover. He had seemed to feel, no doubt, that he, with his fortune and position at his back, need feel no scruple in accepting as his own the fair hand for which he had asked. But now--nothing could be more different from this than his manner was now.

Lady Desmond was now surprised, though probably not as yet frightened. Why should a lawyer have come from London to visit Sir Thomas at a period of such illness? and why should Herbert have walked over to Desmond Court to tell them of this illness? There must be something in this lawyer's coming which was intended to bear in some way on her daughter's marriage. "But, Herbert," she said, "you are quite wet. Will you not put on some of Patrick's things?"

"No, thank you," said he; "I shall not stay long. I shall soon have said what I have got to say."

"But do, Herbert," said Clara. "I cannot bear to see you so uncomfortable. And then you will not be in such a hurry to go back."

"Ill as my father is," said he, "I cannot stay long; but I have thought it my duty to come over and tell you--tell you what has happened at Castle Richmond."

And now the countess was frightened. There was that in Herbert's tone of voice and the form of his countenance which was enough to frighten any woman. What had happened at Castle Richmond? what could have happened there to make necessary the presence of a lawyer, and at the same time thus to sadden her future son-in-law? And Clara also was frightened, though she knew not why. His manner was so different from that which was usual; he was so cold, and serious, and awe-struck, that she could not but be unhappy.

"And what is it?" said the countess.

Herbert then sat for a few minutes silent, thinking how best he should tell them his story. He had been all the morning resolving to tell it, but he had in nowise as yet fixed upon any method. It was all so terribly tragic, so frightful in the extent of its reality, that he hardly knew how it would be possible for him to get through his task.

"I hope that no misfortune has come upon any of the family," said Lady Desmond, now beginning to think that there might be misfortunes which would affect her own daughter more nearly than the illness either of the baronet or of his wife.

"Oh, I hope not!" said Clara, getting up and clasping her hands. "What is it, Herbert? why don't you speak?" And coming round to him, she took hold of his arm.

"Dearest Clara," he said, looking at her with more tenderness than had ever been usual with him, "I think that you had better leave us. I could tell it better to your mother alone."

"Do, Clara, love. Go, dearest, and we will call you by-and-by."

Clara moved away very slowly toward the door, and then she turned round. "If it is anything that makes you unhappy, Herbert," she said, "I must know it before you leave me."

"Yes, yes; either I or your mother--. You shall be told, certainly."

"Yes, yes, you shall be told," said the countess. "And now go, my darling." Thus dismissed, Clara did go, and betook herself to her own chamber. Had Owen had sorrows to tell her, he would have told them to herself; of that she was quite sure. "And now, Herbert, for heaven's sake what is it?" said the countess, pale with terror. She was fully certain now that something was to be spoken which would be calculated to interfere with her daughter's prospects.

We all know the story which Herbert had to tell, and we need not therefore again be present at the telling of it. Sitting there, wet through, in Lady Desmond's drawing-room, he did contrive to utter it all--the whole of it from the beginning to the end, making it clearly to be understood that he was no longer Fitzgerald of Castle Richmond, but a nameless, pennyless outcast, without the hope of portion or position, doomed from henceforth to earn his bread in the sweat of his brow--if only he could be fortunate enough to find the means of earning it.

Nor did Lady Desmond once interrupt him in his story. She sat perfectly still, listening to him almost with unmoved face. She was too wise to let him know what the instant working of her mind might be before she had made her own fixed resolve; and she had conceived the truth much before he had completed the telling of it. We generally use three times the number of words which are necessary for the purpose which we have in hand; but had he used six times the number, she would not have interrupted him. It was good in him to give her this time to determine in what tone and with what words she would speak, when speaking on her part should become absolutely necessary. "And now," he concluded by saying--and at this time he was standing up on the rug--"you know it all, Lady Desmond. It will perhaps be best that Clara should learn it from you."

He had said not a word of giving up his pretensions to Lady Clara's hand; but then neither had he in any way hinted that the match should, in his opinion, be regarded as unbroken. He had not spoken of his sorrow at bringing down all this poverty on his wife: and surely he would have so spoken had he thought their engagement was still valid; but then he had not himself pointed out that the engagement must necessarily be broken, as, in Lady Desmond's opinion, he certainly should have done.

"Yes," said she, in a cold, low, meaningless voice--in a voice that told nothing by its tones--"Lady Clara had better hear it from me." But in the title which she gave her daughter, Herbert instantly read his doom. He, however, remained silent. It was for the countess now to speak.

"But it is possible it may not be true," she said, speaking almost in a whisper, looking not into his face, but by him, at the fire.

"It is possible, but so barely possible, that I did not think it right to keep the matter from you any longer."

"It would have been very wrong--very wicked, I may say," said the countess.

"It is only two days since I knew anything of it myself," said he, vindicating himself.

"You were of course bound to let me know immediately," she said, harshly.

"And I have let you know immediately, Lady Desmond." And then they were both again silent for a while.

"And Mr. Prendergast thinks there is no doubt?" she asked.

"None," said Herbert, very decidedly.

"And he has told your cousin Owen?"

"He did so yesterday, and by this time my poor mother knows it also." And then there was another period of silence.

During the whole time Lady Desmond had uttered no one word of condolence--not a syllable of commiseration for all the sufferings that had come upon Herbert and his family; and he was beginning to hate her for her harshness. The tenor of her countenance had become hard, and she received all his words as a judge might have taken them, merely wanting evidence before he pronounced his verdict. The evidence she was beginning to think sufficient, and there could be no doubt as to her verdict. After what she had heard, a match between Herbert Fitzgerald and her daughter would be out of the question. "It is very dreadful," she said, thinking only of her own child, and absolutely shivering at the danger which had been incurred.

"It is very dreadful," said Herbert, shivering also. It was almost incredible to him that his great sorrow should be received in such a way by one who had professed to be so dear a friend to him.

"And what do you propose to do, Mr. Fitzgerald?" said the countess.

"What do I propose?" he said, repeating her words. "Hitherto I have had neither time nor heart to propose anything. Such a misfortune as that which I have told you does not break upon a man without disturbing for a while his power of resolving. I have thought so much of my mother, and of Clara, since Mr. Prendergast told me all this, that--that--that--" And then a slight gurgling struggle fell upon his throat and hindered him from speaking. He did not quite sob out, and he determined that he would not do so. If she could be so harsh and strong, he would be harsh and strong also.

And again Lady Desmond sat silent, still thinking how she had better speak and act. After all she was not so cruel nor so bad as Herbert Fitzgerald thought her. What had the Fitzgeralds done for her that she should sorrow for their sorrows? She had lived there, in that old ugly barrack, long desolate, full of dreary wretchedness and poverty, and Lady Fitzgerald in her prosperity had never come to her to soften the hardness of her life. She had come over to Ireland a countess, and a countess she had been, proud enough at first in her little glory--too proud, no doubt; and proud enough afterwards in her loneliness and poverty; and there she had lived--alone. Whether the fault had been her own or no, she owed little to the kindness of any one; for no one had done aught to relieve her bitterness. And then her weak puny child had grown up in the same shade, and was now a lovely woman, gifted with high birth, and that special priceless beauty which high blood so often gives. There was a prize now within the walls of that old barrack--something to be won--something for which a man would strive, and a mother smile that her son might win it. And now Lady Fitzgerald had come to her. She had never complained of this, she said to herself. The bargain between Clara Desmond and Herbert Fitzgerald had been good for both of them, and let it be made and settled as a bargain. Young Herbert Fitzgerald had money and position; her daughter had beauty and high blood. Let it be a bargain. But in all this there was nothing to make her love that rich prosperous family at Castle Richmond. There are those whose nature it is to love new-found friends at a few hours' warning, but the Countess of Desmond was not one of them. The bargain had been made, and her daughter would have been able to perform her part of it. She was still able to give that which she had stipulated to give. But Herbert Fitzgerald was now a bankrupt, and could give nothing! Would it not have been madness to suppose that the bargain should still hold good?

One person and one only had come to her at Desmond Court, whose coming had been a solace to her weariness. Of all those among whom she had lived in cold desolateness for so many years, one only had got near her heart. There had been but one Irish voice that she had cared to hear; and the owner of that voice had loved her child instead of loving her.

And she had borne that wretchedness too, if not well, at least bravely. True, she had separated that lover from her daughter; but the circumstances of both had made it right for her, as a mother, to do so. What mother, circumstanced as she had been, would have given her girl to Owen Fitzgerald? So she had banished from the house the only voice that sounded sweetly in her ears, and again she had been alone.

And then, perhaps, thoughts had come to her, when Herbert Fitzgerald was frequent about the place, a rich and thriving wooer, that Owen might come again to Desmond Court, when Clara had gone to Castle Richmond. Years were stealing over her. Ah, yes. She knew that full well. All her youth and the pride of her days she had given up for that countess-ship which she now wore so gloomily--given up for pieces of gold which had turned to stone and slate and dirt within her grasp. Years, alas! were fast stealing over her. But nevertheless she had something to give. Her woman's beauty was not all faded; and she had a heart which was as yet virgin--which had hitherto loved no other man. Might not that suffice to cover a few years, seeing that in return she wanted nothing but love? And so she had thought, lingering over her hopes, while Herbert was there at his wooing.

It may be imagined with what feelings at her heart she had seen and listened to the frank attempt made by Owen to get back his childish love. But that too she had borne, bravely, if not well. It had not angered her that her child was loved by the only man she had ever loved herself. She had stroked her daughter's hair that day, and kissed her cheek, and bade her be happy with her better, richer lover. And had she not been right in this? Nor had she been angry even with Owen. She could forgive him all, because she loved him. But might there not even yet be a chance for her when Clara should in very truth have gone to Castle Richmond?

But now! How was she to think about all this now? And thinking of these things, how was it possible that she should have heart left to feel for the miseries of Lady Fitzgerald? With all her miseries would not Lady Fitzgerald still be more fortunate than she? Let come what might, Lady Fitzgerald had had a life of prosperity and love. No; she could not think of Lady Fitzgerald, nor of Herbert: she could only think of Owen Fitzgerald, of her daughter, and of herself.

He, Owen, was now the heir to Castle Richmond, and would, as far as she could learn, soon become the actual possessor. He, who had been cast forth from Desmond Court as too poor and contemptible in the world's eye to be her daughter's suitor, would become the rich inheritor of all those broad acres, and that old coveted family honour. And this Owen still loved her daughter--loved her not as Herbert did, with a quiet, gentleman-like, every-day attachment, but with the old, true, passionate love of which she had read in books, and dreamed herself, before she had sold herself to be a countess. That Owen did so love her daughter, she was very sure. And then, as to her daughter; that she did not still love this new heir in her heart of hearts--of that the mother was by no means sure. That her child had chosen the better part in choosing money and a title, she had not doubted; and that having so chosen Clara would be happy,--of that also she did not doubt. Clara was young, she would say, and her heart in a few months would follow her hand.

But now! How was she to decide, sitting here with Herbert Fitzgerald before her, gloomy as death, cold, shivering, and muddy, telling of his own disasters with no more courage than a whipped dog? As she looked at him she declared to herself twenty times in half a second that he had not about him a tithe of the manhood of his cousin Owen. Women love a bold front, and a voice that will never own its master to have been beaten in the world's fight. Had Owen came there with such a story, he would have claimed his right boldly to the lady's hand, in spite of all that the world had done to him.

"Let her have him," said Lady Desmond to herself, and the struggle within her bosom was made and over. No wonder that Herbert, looking into her face for pity, should find that she was harsh and cruel. She had been sacrificing herself, and had completed the sacrifice. Owen Fitzgerald, the heir to Castle Richmond, Sir Owen as he would soon be, should have her daughter. They two, at any rate, should be happy. And she--she would live there at Desmond Court, lonely as she had ever lived. While all this was passing through her mind, she hardly thought of Herbert and his sorrows. That he must be given up and abandoned, and left to make what best fight he could by himself; as to that how was it possible that she as a mother should have any doubt?

And yet it was a pity--a thousand pities. Herbert Fitzgerald, with his domestic virtues, his industry and thorough respectability, would so exactly have suited Clara's taste and mode of life--had he only continued to be the heir of Castle Richmond. She and Owen would not enter upon the world together with nearly the same fair chance of happiness. Who could prophecy to what Owen might be led with his passionate impulses, his strong will, his unbridled temper, and his love of pleasure? That he was noble-hearted, affectionate, brave, and tender in his inmost spirit, Lady Desmond was very sure; but were such the qualities which would make her daughter happy? When Clara should come to know her future lord as Clara's mother knew him, would Clara love him and worship him as her mother did? The mother believed that Clara had not in her bosom heart enough for such a love. But then, as I have said before, the mother did not know the daughter.

"You say that you will break all this to Clara," said Herbert, having during this silence turned over some of his thoughts also in his mind. "If so I may as well leave you now. You can imagine that I am anxious to get back to my mother."

"Yes, it will be better that I should tell her. It is very sad, very sad, very sad indeed."

"Yes, it is a hard load for a man to bear," he answered, speaking very, very slowly. "But for myself I think I can bear it, if--"

"If what?" asked the countess.

"If Clara can bear it."

And now it was necessary that Lady Desmond should speak out. She did not mean to be unnecessarily harsh, but she did mean to be decided, and as she spoke her face became stern and ill-favoured. "That Clara will be terribly distressed," she said, "terribly, terribly distressed," repeating her words with great emphasis, "of that I am quite sure. She is very young, and will, I hope, in time get over it. And then too I think she is one whose feelings, young as she is, have never conquered her judgment. Therefore I do believe that, with God's mercy, she will be able to bear it. But, Mr. Fitzgerald--"

"Well?"

"Of course you feel with me--and I am sure that with your excellent judgment it is a thing of course--that everything must be over between you and Lady Clara." And then she came to a full stop as though all had been said that could be considered necessary.

Herbert did not answer at once, but stood there shivering and shaking in his misery. He was all but overcome by the chill of his wet garments; and though he struggled to throw off the dead feeling of utter cold which struck him to the heart, he was quite unable to master it. He could hardly forgive himself that on such an occasion he should have been so conquered by his own outer feelings, but now he could not help himself. He was weak with hunger too--though he did not know it, for he had hardly eaten food that day, and was nearly exhausted with the unaccustomed amount of hard exercise which he had taken. He was, moreover, thoroughly wet through, and heavy laden with the mud of the road. It was no wonder that Lady Desmond had said to herself that he looked like a whipped dog.

"That must be as Lady Clara shall decide," he said at last, barely uttering the words through his chattering teeth.

"It must be as I say," said the countess firmly; "whether by her decision or by yours--or if necessary by mine. But if your feelings are, as I take them to be, those of a man of honour, you will not leave it to me or to her. What! now that you have the world to struggle with, would you seek to drag her down into the struggle?"

"Our union was to be for better or worse. I would have given her all the better, and--"

"Yes; and had there been a union she would have bravely borne her part in sharing the worst. But who ought to be so thankful as you that this truth has broken upon you before you had clogged yourself with a wife of high birth but without fortune? Alone, a man educated as you are, with your talents, may face the world without fearing anything. But how could you make your way now if my daughter were your wife? When you think of it, Mr. Fitzgerald, you will cease to wish for it."

"Never; I have given my heart to your daughter, and I cannot take back the gift. She has accepted it, and she cannot return it."

"And what would you have her do?" Lady Desmond asked, with anger and almost passion in her voice.

"Wait--as I must wait," said Herbert. "That will be her duty, as I believe it will also be her wish."

"Yes, and wear out her young heart here in solitude for the next ten years, and then learn when her beauty and her youth are gone--. But no, Mr. Fitzgerald; I will not allow myself to contemplate such a prospect either for her or for you. Under the lamentable circumstances which you have now told me it is imperative that this match should be broken off. Ask your own mother and hear what she will say. And if you are a man you will not throw upon my poor child the hard task of declaring that it must be so. You, by your calamity, are unable to perform your contract with her; and it is for you to announce that that contract is therefore over."

Herbert in his present state was unable to argue with Lady Desmond. He had in his brain, and mind, and heart, and soul--at least so he said to himself afterwards, having perhaps but a loose idea of the different functions of these four different properties--a thorough conviction that as he and Clara had sworn to each other that for life they would live together and love each other, no misfortune to either of them could justify the other in breaking that oath;-- could even justify him in breaking it, though he was the one on whom misfortune had fallen. He, no doubt, had first loved Clara for her beauty; but would he have ceased to love her, or have cast her from him, if, by God's will, her beauty had perished and gone from her? Would he not have held her closer to his heart, and told her, with strong comforting vows, that his love had now gone deeper than that; that they were already of the same bone, of the same flesh, of the same family and hearthstone? He knew himself in this, and knew that he would have been proud so to do, and so to feel,--that he would have cast from him with utter indignation any who would have counselled him to do or to feel differently. And why should Clara's heart be different from his?

All this, I say, was his strong conviction. But, nevertheless, her heart might be different. She might look on that engagement of theirs with altogether other thoughts and other ideas; and if so his voice should never reproach her;--not his voice, however his heart might do so. Such might be the case with her, but he did not think it; and therefore he would not pronounce that decision which Clara's mother expected from him.

"When you have told her of this, I suppose I may be allowed to see her," he said, avoiding the direct proposition which Lady Desmond had made to him.

"Allowed to see her?" said Lady Desmond, now also in her turn speaking very slowly. "I cannot answer that question as yet; not quite immediately, I should say. But if you will leave the matter in my hands, I will write to you, if not to-morrow, then the next day."

"I would sooner that she should write."

"I cannot promise that--I do not know how far her good sense and strength may support her under this affliction. That she will suffer terribly, on your account as well as on her own, you may be quite sure." And then, again, there was a pause of some moments.

"I, at any rate, shall write to her," he then said, "and shall tell her that I expect her to see me. Her will in this matter shall be my will. If she thinks that her misery will be greater in being engaged to a poor man, than,--than in relinquishing her love, she shall hear no word from me to overpersuade her. But, Lady Desmond, I will say nothing that shall authorize her to think that she is given up by me, till I have in some way learned from herself what her own feelings are. And now I will say good-bye to you."

"Good-bye," said the countess, thinking that it might be as well that the interview should be ended. "But, Mr. Fitzgerald, you are very wet; and I fear that you are very cold. You had better take something before you go." Countess as she was, she had no carriage in which she could send him home; no horse even on which he could ride. "Nothing, thank you, Lady Desmond," he said; and so, without offering her the courtesy of his hand, he walked out of the room.

He was very angry with her, as he tried to make the blood run quicker in his veins by hurrying down the avenue into the road at his quickest pace. So angry with her, that for a while, in his indignation, he almost forgot his father and his mother and his own family tragedy. That she should have wished to save her daughter from such a marriage might have been natural; but that she should have treated him so coldly, so harshly--without one spark of love or pity,--him, who to her had been so loyal during his courtship of her daughter! It was almost incredible to him. Was not his story one that would have melted the heart of a stranger--at which men would weep? He himself had seen tears in the eyes of that dry, time-worn, world-used London lawyer, as the full depth of the calamity had forced itself upon his heart. Yes, Mr. Prendergast had not been able to repress his tears when he told the tale; but Lady Desmond had shed no tears when the tale had been told to her. No soft woman's message had been sent to the afflicted mother on whom it had pleased God to allow so heavy a hand to fall. No word of tenderness had been uttered for the sinking father. There had been no feeling for the household which was to have been so nearly linked with her own. No. Looking round with greedy eyes for wealth for her daughter, Lady Desmond had found a match that suited her. Now that match no longer suited her greed, and she could throw from her without a struggle to her feelings the suitor that was now poor, and the family of the suitor that was now neither grand nor powerful.

And then too he felt angry with Clara, though he knew that as yet, at any rate, he had no cause. In spite of what he had said and felt, he would imagine to himself that she also would be cold and untrue. "Let her go," he said to himself. "Love is worth nothing--nothing if it does not believe itself to be of more worth than everything beside. If she does not love me now in my misery--if she would not choose me now for her husband--her love has never been worthy the name. Love that has no faith in itself, that does not value itself above all worldly things, is nothing. If it be not so with her, let her go back to him."

It may easily be understood who was the him. And then Herbert walked on so rapidly that at length his strength almost failed him, and in his exhaustion he had more than once to lean against a gate on the road-side. With difficulty at last he got home, and dragged himself up the long avenue to the front door. Even yet he was not warm through to his heart, and he felt as he entered the house that he was quite unfitted for the work which he might yet have to do before he could go to his bed.

CHAPTER XXVII

COMFORTED

When Herbert Fitzgerald got back to Castle Richmond it was nearly dark. He opened the hall door without ringing the bell, and walking at once into the dining room, threw himself into a large leathern chair which always stood near the fire-place. There was a bright fire burning on the hearth, and he drew himself close to it, putting his wet feet up on to the fender, thinking that he would at any rate warm himself before he went in among any of the family. The room, with its deep-red curtains and ruby-embossed paper, was almost dark, and he knew that he might remain there unseen and unnoticed for the next half-hour. If he could only get a glass of wine! He tried the cellaret, which was as often open as locked, but now unfortunately it was closed. In such a case it was impossible to say whether the butler had the key or Aunt Letty; so he sat himself down without that luxury.

By this time, as he well knew, all would have been told to his mother, and his first duty would be to go to her--to go to her and comfort her, if comfort might be possible, by telling her that he could bear it all; that as far as he was concerned title and wealth and a proud name were as nothing to him in comparison with his mother's love. In whatever guise he may have appeared before Lady Desmond, he would not go to his mother with a fainting heart. She should not hear his teeth chatter, nor see his limbs shake. So he sat himself down there that he might become warm, and in five minutes he was fast asleep.

How long he slept he did not know; not very long, probably; but when he awoke it was quite dark. He gazed at the fire for a moment, bethought himself of where he was and why, shook himself to get rid of his slumber, and then roused himself in his chair. As he did so a soft sweet voice close to his shoulder spoke to him. "Herbert," it said, "are you awake?" And he found that his mother, seated by his side on a low stool, had been watching him in his sleep.

"Mother!" he exclaimed.

"Herbert, my child, my son!" And the mother and son were fast locked in each other's arms.

He had sat down there thinking how he would go to his mother and offer her solace in her sorrow; how he would bid her be of good cheer, and encourage her to bear the world as the world had now fallen to her lot. He had pictured to himself that he would find her sinking in despair, and had promised himself that with his vows, his kisses, and his prayers, he would bring her back to her self-confidence, and induce her to acknowledge that God's mercy was yet good to her. But now, on awakening, he discovered that she had been tending him in his misery, and watching him while he slept, that she might comfort him with her caresses the moment that he awoke to the remembrance of his misfortunes.

"Herbert, Herbert, my son, my son!" she said again, as she pressed him close in her arms.

"Mother, has he told you?"

Yes, she had learned it all; but hardly more than she had known before; or, at any rate, not more than she had expected. As she now told him, for many days past she had felt that this trouble which had fallen upon his father must have come from the circumstances of their marriage. And she would have spoken out, she said, when the idea became clear to her, had she not then been told that Mr. Prendergast had been invited to come thither from London. Then she knew that she had better remain silent, at any rate till his visit had been made.

And Herbert again sat in the chair, and his mother crouched, or almost kneeled, on the cushion at his knee. "Dearest, dearest, dearest mother," he said, as he supported her head against his shoulder, "we must love each other now more than ever we have loved."

"And you forgive us, Herbert, for all that we have done to you?"

"Mother, if you speak in that way to me you will kill me. My darling, darling mother!"

There was but little more said between them upon the matter--but little more, at least, in words; but there was an infinity of caresses, and deep--deep assurances of undying love and confidence. And then she asked him about his bride, and he told her where he had been, and what had happened. "You must not claim her, Herbert," she said to him. "God is good, and will teach you to bear even that also."

"Must I not?" he asked, with a sadly plaintive voice.

"No, my child. You invited her to share your prosperity, and would it be just--"

"But, mother, if she wills it?"

"It is for you to give her back her troth, then leave it to time and her own heart."

"But if she love me, mother, she will not take back her troth. Would I take back hers because she was in sorrow?"

"Men and women, Herbert, are different. The oak cares not whether the creeper which hangs to it be weak or strong. If it be weak the oak can give it strength. But the staff which has to support the creeper must needs have strength of its own."

He made no further answer to her, but understood that he must do as she bade him. He understood now also, without many arguments within himself, that he had no right to expect from Clara Desmond that adherence to him and his misfortunes which he would have owed to her had she been unfortunate. He understood this now; but still he hoped. "Two hearts that have once become as one cannot be separated," he said to himself that night, as he resolved that it was his duty to write to her, unconditionally returning to her her pledges.

"But, Herbert, what a state you are in!" said Lady Fitzgerald, as the flame of the coal glimmering out, threw a faint light upon his clothes.

"Yes, mother; I have been walking."

"And you are wet!"

"I am nearly dry now. I was wet. But, mother, I am tired and fagged. It would do me good if I could get a glass of wine."

She rang the bell, and gave her orders calmly--though every servant in the house now knew the whole truth,--and then lit a candle herself, and looked at him. "My child, what have you done to yourself? Oh, Herbert, you will be ill!" And then, with his arm round her waist, she took him up to her own room, and sat by him while he took off his muddy boots and clammy socks, and made him hot drinks, and tended him as she had done when he was a child. And yet she had that day heard of her great ruin! With truth, indeed, had Mr. Prendergast said that she was made of more enduring material than Sir Thomas.

And she endeavoured to persuade him to go to his bed; but in this he would not listen to her. He must, he said, see his father that night. "You have been with him, mother, since--since--"

"Oh yes; directly after Mr. Prendergast left me."

"Well?"

"He cried like a child, Herbert. We both sobbed together like two children. It was very piteous. But I think I left him better than he has been. He knows now that those men cannot come again to harass him."

Herbert gnashed his teeth, and clenched his fist as he thought of them; but he could not speak of them, or mention their name before his mother. What must her thoughts be, as she remembered that elder man and looked back to her early childhood!

"He is very weak," she went on to say: "almost helplessly weak now, and does not seem to think of leaving his bed. I have begged him to let me send to Dublin for Sir Henry; but he says that nothing ails him."

"And who is with him now, mother?"

"The girls are both there."

"And Mr. Prendergast?"

Lady Fitzgerald then explained to him, that Mr. Prendergast had returned to Dublin that afternoon, starting twenty-four hours earlier than he intended,--or, at any rate, than he had said that he intended. Having done his work there, he had felt that he would now only be in the way. And, moreover, though his work was done at Castle Richmond, other work in the same matter had still to be done in England. Mr. Prendengast had very little doubt as to the truth of Mollett's story;--indeed we may say he had no doubt; otherwise he would hardly have made it known to all that world round Castle Richmond. But nevertheless it behoved him thoroughly to sift the matter. He felt tolerably sure that he should find Mollett in London; and whether he did or no, he should be able to identify, or not to identify, that scoundrel with the Mr. Talbot who had hired Chevy-chase Lodge, in Dorsetshire, and who had undoubtedly married poor Mary Wainwright.

"He left a kind message for you," said Lady Fitzgerald.--My readers must excuse me if I still call her Lady Fitzgerald, for I cannot bring my pen to the use of any other name. And it was so also with the dependents and neighbours of Castle Richmond, when the time came that the poor lady felt that she was bound publicly to drop her title. It was not in her power to drop it: no effort that she could make would induce those around her to call her by another name.

"He bade me say," she continued, "that if your future course of life should take you to London, you are to go to him, and look to him as another father. He has no child of his own," he said, "and you shall be to him as a son."

"I will be no one's son but yours,--yours and my father's," he said, again embracing her.

And then, when, under his mother's eye, he had eaten and drank and made himself warm, he did go to his father and found both his sisters sitting there. They came and clustered round him, taking hold of his hands and looking up into his face, loving him, and pitying him, and caressing him with their eyes, but standing there by their father's bed, they said little or nothing. Nor did Sir Thomas say much,--except this, indeed, that, just as Herbert was leaving him, he declared with a faint voice, that henceforth his son should be master of that house, and the disposer of that property--"As long as I live!" he exclaimed with his weak voice; "as long as I live!"

"No, father, not so."

"Yes, yes! as long as I live. It will be little that you will have, even so--very little. But so it shall be as long as I live."

Very little indeed, poor man, for, alas! his days were numbered.

And then, when Herbert left the room, Emmeline followed him. She had ever been his dearest sister, and now she longed to be with him that she might tell him how she loved him, and comfort him with her tears. And Clara too--Clara whom she had welcomed as a sister!--she must learn now how Clara would behave, for she had already made herself sure that her brother had been at Desmond Court, the herald of his own ruin.

"May I come with you, Herbert?" she asked, closing in round him and getting under his arm. How could he refuse her? So they went together and sat over a fire in a small room that was sacred to her and her sister, and there, with many sobs on her part and much would-be brave contempt of poverty on his, they talked over the altered world as it now showed itself before them.

"And you did not see her?" she asked, when with many efforts she had brought the subject round to Clara Desmond and her brother's walk to Desmond Court.

"No; she left the room at my own bidding. I could not have told it myself to her."

"And you cannot know, then, what she would say?"

"No, I cannot know what she would say; but I know now what I must say myself. All that is over, Emmeline. I cannot ask her to marry a beggar."

"Ask her; no! there will be no need of asking her; she has already given you her promise. You do not think that she will desert you? you do not wish it?"

Herein were contained two distinct questions, the latter of which Herbert did not care to answer. "I shall not call it desertion," he said; "indeed the proposal will come from me. I shall write to her, telling her that she need think about me no longer. Only that I am so weary I would do it now."

"And how will she answer you? If she is the Clara that I take her for she will throw your proposal back into your face. She will tell you that it is not in your power to reject her now. She will swear to you, that let your words be what they may, she will think of you--more now than she has ever thought in better days. She will tell you of her love in words that she could not use before. I know she will. I know that she is good, and true, and honest, and generous. Oh, I should die if I thought she were false! But, Herbert, I am sure that she is true. You can write your letter, and we shall see."

Herbert, with wise arguments learned from his mother, reasoned with his sister, explaining to her that Clara was now by no means bound to cling to him, but as he spoke them his arm fastened itself closely round his sister's waist, for the words which she uttered with so much energy were comfortable to him.

And then, seated there, before he moved from the room, he made her bring him pens, ink, and paper, and he wrote his letter to Clara Desmond. She would fain have stayed with him while he did so, sitting at his feet, and looking into his face, and trying to encourage his hope as to what Clara's answer might be; but this he would not allow; so she went again to her father's room, having succeeded in obtaining a promise that Clara's answer should be shown to her. And the letter, when it was written, copied, and recopied, ran as follows.--

"Castle Richmond,----night.

"My dearest Clara,"--It was with great difficulty that he could satisfy himself with that, or indeed with any other mode of commencement. In the short little love-notes which had hitherto gone from him, sent from house to house, he had written to her with appellations of endearment of his own--as all lovers do; and as all lovers seem to think that no lovers have done before themselves--with appellations which are so sweet to those who write, and so musical to those who read, but which sound so ludicrous when barbarously made public in hideous law courts by brazen-browed lawyers with mercenary tongues. In this way only had he written, and each of these sweet silly songs of love had been as full of honey as words could make it. But he had never yet written to her, on a full sheet of paper, a sensible positive letter containing thoughts and facts, as men do write to women and women also to men, when the lollypops and candied sugar-drops of early love have passed away. Now he was to write his first serious letter to her,--and probably his last, and it was with difficulty that he could get himself over the first three words; but there they were decided on at last.

"My dearest Clara,

"Before you get this your mother will have told you all that which I could not bring myself to speak out yesterday, as long as you were in the room. I am sure you will understand now why I begged you to go away, and not think the worse of me for doing so. You now know the whole truth, and I am sure that you will feel for us all here.

"Having thought a good deal upon the matter, chiefly during my walk home from Desmond Court, and indeed since I have been at home, I have come to the resolution that everything between us must be over. It would be unmanly in me to wish to ruin you because I myself am ruined. Our engagement was, of course, made on the presumption that I should inherit my father's estate; as it is I shall not do so, and therefore I beg that you will regard that engagement as at an end. Of my own love for you I will say nothing. But I know that you have loved me truly, and that all this, therefore, will cause you great grief. It is better, however, that it should be so, than that I should seek to hold you to a promise which was made under such different circumstances.

"You will, of course, show this letter to your mother. She, at any rate, will approve of what I am now doing; and so will you when you allow yourself to consider it calmly.

"We have not known each other so long that there is much for us to give back to each other. If you do not think it wrong I should like still to keep that lock of your hair, to remind me of my first love--and, as I think, my only one. And you, I hope, will not be afraid to have near you the one little present that I made you.

"And now, dearest Clara, good-bye. Let us always think, each of the other, as of a very dear friend. May God bless you, and preserve you, and make you happy.

"Yours, with sincere affection,

"HERBERT FITZGERALD."

This, when at last he had succeeded in writing it, he read over and over again; but on each occasion he said to himself that it was cold and passionless, stilted and unmeaning. It by no means pleased him, and seemed as though it could bring but one answer--a cold acquiescence in the proposal which he so coldly made. But yet he knew not how to improve it. And after all it was a true exposition of that which he had determined to say. All the world--her world and his world--would think it better that they should part, and let the struggle cost him what it would, he would teach himself to wish that it might be so--if not for his own sake, then for hers. So he fastened the letter, and taking it with him determined to send it over, so that it should reach Clara quite early on the following morning.

And then having once more visited his father, and once more kissed his mother, he betook himself to bed. It had been with him one of those days which seem to pass away without reference to usual hours and periods. It had been long dark, and he seemed to have been hanging about the house, doing nothing and aiding nobody, till he was weary of himself. So he went off to bed, almost wondering, as he bethought himself of what had happened to him within the last two days, that he was able to bear the burden of his life so easily as he did. He betook himself to bed, and with the letter close at his hand, so that he might despatch it when he awoke, he was soon asleep. After all, that walk, terrible as it had been, was in the end serviceable to him.

He slept without waking till the light of the February morning was beginning to dawn into his room, and then he was roused by a servant knocking at the door. It was grievous enough that awaking to his sorrow after the pleasant dreams of the night.

"Here is a letter, Mr. Herbert, from Desmond Court," said Richard. "The boy as brought it says as how--"

"A letter from Desmond Court," said Herbert, putting out his hand greedily.

"Yes, Mr. Herbert. The boy's been here this hour and better. I warn't just up and about myself, or I wouldn't have let 'em keep it from you, not half a minute."

"And where is he? I have a letter to send to Desmond Court. But never mind. Perhaps--"

"It's no good minding, for the gossoon's gone back any ways." And then Richard, having drawn the blind, and placed a little table by the bed-head, left his young master to read the despatch from Desmond Court. Herbert, till he saw the writing, feared that it was from the countess; but the letter was from Clara. She also had thought good to write before she betook herself to bed, and she had been earlier in despatching her messenger. Here is her letter:

"Dear Herbert, my own Herbert,

"I have heard it all. But remember this; nothing, nothing, NOTHING can make any change between you and me. I will hear of no arguments that are to separate us. I know beforehand what you will say, but I will not regard it--not in the least. I love you ten times the more for all your unhappiness; and as I would have shared your good fortune, I claim my right to share your bad fortune. PRAY BELIEVE ME, that nothing shall turn me from this; for I will NOT BE GIVEN UP.

"Give my kindest love to your dear, dear, dearest mother--my mother, as she is and must be; and to my darling girls. I do so wish I could be with them, and with you, my own Herbert. I cannot help writing in confusion, but I will explain all when I see you. I have been so unhappy.

"Your own faithful

"CLARA."

Having read this, Herbert Fitzgerald, in spite of his affliction, was comforted.

CHAPTER XXVIII

FOR A' THAT AND A' THAT

Herbert as he started from his bed with this letter in his hand felt that he could yet hold up his head against all that the world could do to him. How could he be really unhappy while he possessed such an assurance of love as this, and while his mother was able to give him so glorious an example of endurance? He was not really unhappy. The low-spirited broken-hearted wretchedness of the preceding day seemed to have departed from him as he hurried on his clothes, and went off to his sister's room that he might show his letter to Emmeline in accordance with the promise he had made her.

"May I come in?" he said, knocking at the door. "I must come in, for I have something to show you." But the two girls were dressing and he could not be admitted. Emmeline however, promised to come to him, and in about three minutes she was out in the cold little sitting-room which adjoined their bedroom with her slippers on, and her dressing gown wrapped round her, an object presentable to no male eyes but those of her brother.

"Emmeline," said he, "I have got a letter this morning."

"Not from Clara?"

"Yes, from Clara. There; you may read it;" and he handed her the precious epistle.

"But she could not have got your letter?" said Emmeline, before she looked at the one in her hand.

"Certainly not, for I have it here. I must write another now; but in truth I do not know what to say. I can be as generous as she is."

And then his sister read the letter. "My own Clara!" she exclaimed, as she saw what was the tenor of it. "Did I not tell you so, Herbert? I knew well what she would do and say. Love you ten times better!--of course she does. What honest girl would not? My own beautiful Clara, I knew I could depend on her. I did not doubt her for one moment." But in this particular it must be acknowledged that Miss Emmeline Fitzgerald hardly confined herself to the strictest veracity, for she had lain awake half the night perplexed with doubt. What, oh what, if Clara should be untrue! Such had been the burden of her doubting midnight thoughts. "'I will not be given up,'" she continued, quoting the letter. "No; of course not. And I tell you what, Herbert, you must not dare to talk of giving her up. Money and titles may be tossed to and fro, but not hearts. How beautifully she speaks of dear mamma!" and now the tears began to run down the young lady's cheeks. "Oh, I do wish she could be with us! My darling, darling, darling Clara! Unhappy? Yes: I am sure Lady Desmond will give her no peace. But never mind. She will be true through it all; and I said so from the first." And then she fell to crying, and embracing her brother, and declaring that nothing now should make her altogether unhappy.

"But, Emmeline, you must not think that I shall take her at her word. It is very generous of her--"

"Nonsense, Herbert!" And then there was another torrent of eloquence, in answering which Herbert found that his arguments were of very little efficacy.

And now we must go back to Desmond Court, and see under what all but overwhelming difficulties poor Clara wrote her affectionate letter. And in the first place it should be pointed out how very wrong Herbert had been in going to Desmond Court on foot, through the mud and rain. A man can hardly bear himself nobly unless his outer aspect be in some degree noble. It may be very sad, this having to admit that the tailor does in great part make the man; but such I fear is undoubtedly the fact. Could the Chancellor look dignified on the woolsack, if he had had an accident with his wig, or allowed his robes to be torn or soiled? Does not half the piety of a bishop reside in his lawn sleeves, and all his meekness in his anti-virile apron? Had Herbert understood the world he would have had out the best pair of horses standing in the Castle Richmond stables, when going to Desmond Court on such an errand. He would have brushed his hair and anointed himself; he would have clothed himself in his rich Spanish cloak; he would have seen that his hat was brushed, and his boots spotless; and then with all due solemnity, but with head erect, he would have told his tale out boldly. The countess would still have wished to be rid of him, hearing that he was a pauper; but she would have lacked the courage to turn him from the house as she had done.

But seeing how woebegone he was and wretched, how mean to look at, and low in his outward presence, she had been able to assume the mastery, and had kept it throughout the interview. And having done this her opinion of his prowess naturally became low, and she felt that he would have been unable to press his cause against her.

For some time after he had departed, she sat alone in the room in which she had received him. She expected every minute that Clara would come down to her, still wishing, however, that she might be left for a while alone. But Clara did not come, and she was able to pursue her thoughts.

How very terrible was this tragedy that had fallen out in her close neighbourhood! That was the first thought that came to her now that Herbert had left her. How terrible, overwhelming, and fatal! What calamity could fall upon a woman so calamitous as this which had now overtaken that poor lady at Castle Richmond? Could she live and support such a burden? Could she bear the eyes of people, when she knew the light in which she must be now regarded? To lose at one blow, her name, her pride of place, her woman's rank and high respect! Could it be possible that she would still live on? It was thus that Lady Desmond thought; and had any one told her that this degraded mother would that very day come down from her room, and sit watchful by her sleeping son, in order that she might comfort and encourage him when he awoke, she would not have found it in her heart to believe such a marvel. But then Lady Desmond knew but one solace in her sorrows--had but one comfort in her sad reflections. She was Countess of Desmond, and that was all. To Lady Fitzgerald had been vouchsafed other solace and other comforts.

And then, on one point the countess made herself fixed as fate, by thinking and re-thinking upon it till no doubt remained upon her mind. The match between Clara and Herbert must be broken off, let the cost be what it might; and--a point on which there was more room for doubt, and more pain in coming to a conclusion--that other match with the more fortunate cousin must be encouraged and carried out. For herself, if her hope was small while Owen was needy and of poor account, what hope could there be now that he would be rich and great? Moreover, Owen loved Clara, and not herself; and Clara's hand would once more be vacant and ready for the winning. For herself her only chance had been in Clara's coming marriage.

In all this she knew that there would be difficulty. She was sure enough that Clara would at first feel the imprudent generosity of youth, and offer to join her poverty to Herbert's poverty. That was a matter of course. She, Lady Desmond herself, would have done this, at Clara's age,--so at least to herself she said, and also to her daughter. But a little time, and a little patience, and a little care would set all this in a proper light. Herbert would go away and would gradually be forgotten. Owen would again come forth from beneath the clouds, with renewed splendour; and then, was it not probable that, in her very heart of hearts Owen was the man whom Clara had ever loved?

And thus having realized to herself the facts which Herbert had told her, she prepared to make them known to her daughter. She got up from her chair, intending at first to seek her, and then, changing her purpose, rang the bell and sent for her. She was astonished to find how violently she herself was affected; not so much by the circumstances, as by this duty which had fallen to her of telling them to her child. She put one hand upon the other and felt that she herself was in a tremor, and was conscious that the blood was running quick round her heart. Clara came down, and going to her customary seat waited till her mother should speak to her.

"Mr. Fitzgerald has brought very dreadful news," Lady Desmond said, after a minute's pause.

"Oh mamma!" said Clara. She had expected bad tidings, having thought of all manner of miseries while she had been upstairs alone; but there was that in her mother's voice which seemed to be worse than the worst of her anticipations.

"Dreadful, indeed, my child! It is my duty to tell them to you; but I must caution you, before I do so, to place a guard upon your feelings. That which I have to say must necessarily alter all your future prospects, and, unfortunately, make your marrying Herbert Fitzgerald quite impossible."

"Mamma!" she exclaimed, with a loud voice, jumping from her chair. "Not marry him! Why; what can he have done? Is it his wish to break it off?"

Lady Desmond had calculated that she would best effect her object by at once impressing her daughter with the idea that, under the circumstances which were about to be narrated, this marriage would not only be imprudent, but altogether impracticable and out of the question. Clara must be made to understand at once, that the circumstances gave her no option,--that the affair was of such a nature as to make it a thing manifest to everybody, that she could not now marry Herbert Fitzgerald. She must not be left to think whether she could, or whether she could not, exercise her own generosity. And therefore, not without discretion, the countess announced at once to her the conclusion at which it would be necessary to arrive. But Clara was not a girl to adopt such a conclusion on any other judgment than her own, or to be led in such a matter by the feelings of any other person.

"Sit down, my dear, and I will explain it all. But, dearest Clara, grieved as I must be to grieve you, I am bound to tell you again that it must be as I say. For both your sakes it must be so; but especially, perhaps, for his. But when I have told you my story, you will understand that this must be so."

"Tell me, then, mother." She said this, for Lady Desmond had again paused.

"Won't you sit down, dearest?"

"Well, yes; it does not matter;" and Clara, at her mother's bidding, sat down, and then the story was told to her.

It was a difficult tale for a mother to tell to so young a child--to a child whom she had regarded as being so very young. There were various little points of law which she thought that she was obliged to explain; how it was necessary that the Castle Richmond property should go to an heir-at-law, and how it was impossible that Herbert should be that heir-at-law, seeing that he had not been born in lawful wedlock. All these things Lady Desmond attempted to explain, or was about to attempt such explanation, but desisted on finding that her daughter understood them as well as she herself did. And then she had to make it also intelligible to Clara that Owen would be called on, when Sir Thomas should die, to fill the position and enjoy the wealth accruing to the heir of Castle Richmond. When Owen Fitzgerald's name was mentioned a slight blush came upon Clara's cheek; it was very slight, but nevertheless her mother saw it, and took advantage of it to say a word in Owen's favour.

"Poor Owen!" she said. "He will not be the first to triumph in this change of fortune."

"I am sure he will not," said Clara. "He is much too generous for that." And then the countess began to hope that the task might not be so very difficult. Ignorant woman! Had she been able to read one page in her daughter's heart, she would have known that the task was impossible. After that the story was told out to the end without further interruption, and then Clara, hiding her face within her hands on the head of the sofa, uttered one long piteous moan.

"It is all very dreadful," said the countess.

"Oh, Lady Fitzgerald, dear Lady Fitzgerald!" sobbed forth Clara.

"Yes, indeed. Poor Lady Fitzgerald! Her fate is so dreadful that I know not how to think of it."

"But, mamma--" and as she spoke Clara pushed back from her forehead her hair with both her hands, showing, as she did so, the form of her forehead, and the firmness of purpose that was written there, legible to any eyes that could read. "But, mamma, you are wrong about my not marrying Herbert Fitzgerald. Why should I not marry him? Not now, as we, perhaps, might have done but for this; but at some future time when he may think himself able to support a wife. Mamma, I shall not break our engagement; certainly not."

This was said in a tone of voice so very decided that Lady Desmond had to acknowledge to herself that there would be difficulty in her task. But she still did not doubt that she would have her way, if not by concession on the part of her daughter, then by concession on the part of Herbert Fitzgerald. "I can understand your generosity of feeling, my dear," she said; "and at your age I should probably have felt the same. And therefore I do not ask you to take any steps towards breaking your engagement. The offer must come from Mr. Fitzgerald, and I have no doubt that it will come. He, as a man of honour, will know that he cannot now offer to marry you; and he will also know, as a man of sense, that it would be ruin for him to think of--of such a marriage under his present circumstances."

"Why, mamma? Why should it be ruin to him?"

"Why, my dear? Do you think that a wife with a titled name can be of advantage to a young man who has not only got his bread to earn, but even to look out for a way in which he may earn it?"

"If there be nothing to hurt him but the titled name, that difficulty shall be easily conquered."

"Dearest Clara, you know what I mean. You must be aware that a girl of your rank, and brought up as you have been, cannot be a fitting wife for a man who will now have to struggle with the world at every turn."

Clara, as this was said to her, and as she prepared to answer, blushed deeply, for she felt herself obliged to speak on a matter which had never yet been subject of speech between her and her mother. "Mamma," she said, "I cannot agree with you there. I may have what the world calls rank; but nevertheless we have been poor, and I have not been brought up with costly habits. Why should I not live with my husband as--as--as poorly as I have lived with my mother? You are not rich, dear mamma, and why should I be?"

Lady Desmond did not answer her daughter at once; but she was not silent because an answer failed her. Her answer would have been ready enough had she dared to speak it out. "Yes, it is true; we have been poor. I, your mother, did by my imprudence bring down upon my head and on yours absolute, unrelenting, pitiless poverty. And because I did so, I hae never known one happy hour. I have spent my days in bitter remorse--in regretting the want of those things which it has been the more terrible to want as they are the customary attributes of people of my rank. I have been driven to hate those around me who have been rich, because I have been poor. I have been utterly friendless because I have been poor. I have been able to do none of those sweet, soft, lovely things, by doing which other women win the smiles of the world, because I have been poor. Poverty and rank together have made me wretched--have left me without employment, without society, and without love. And now would you tell me that because I have been poor you would choose to be poor also?" It would have been thus that she would have answered, had she been accustomed to speak out her thoughts. But she had ever been accustomed to conceal them.

"I was thinking quite as much of him as of you," at last she said. "Such an engagement to you would be fraught with much misery, but to him it would be ruinous."

"I do not think it, mamma."

"But it is not necessary, Clara, that you should do anything. You will wait, of course, and see what Herbert may say himself."

"Herbert--"

"Wait half a moment, my love. I shall be very much surprised if we do not find that Mr. Fitzgerald himself will tell you that the match must be abandoned."

"But that will make no difference, mamma."

"No difference, my dear! You cannot marry him against his will. You do not mean to say that you would wish to bind him to his engagement, if he himself thought it would be to his disadvantage?"

"Yes; I will bind him to it."

"Clara!"

"I will make him know that it is not for his disadvantage. I will make him understand that a friend and companion who loves him as I love him--as no one else will ever love him now--for I love him because he was so high-fortuned when he came to me, and because he is now so low-fortuned--that such a wife as I will be, cannot be a burden to him. I will cling to him whether he throws me off or no. A word from him might have broken our engagement before, but a thousand words cannot do it now."

Lady Desmond stared at her daughter, for Clara, in her excitement, was walking up and down the room. The countess had certainly not expected all this, and she was beginning to think that the subject for the present might as well be left alone. But Clara had not done as yet.

"Mamma." she said, "I will not do anything without telling you; but I cannot leave Herbert in all his misery to think that I have no sympathy with him. I shall write to him."

"Not before he writes to you, Clara! You would not wish to be indelicate?"

"I know but little about delicacy--what people call delicacy; but I will not be ungenerous or unkind. Mamma, you brought us two together. Was it not so? Did you not do so, fearing that I might--might still care for Herbert's cousin? You did it; and half wishing to obey you, half attracted by all his goodness, I did learn to love Herbert Fitzgerald; and I did learn to forget--no; but I learned to cease to love his cousin. You did this and rejoiced at it; and now what you did must remain done."

"But, dearest Clara, it will not be for his good."

"It shall be for his good. Mamma, I would not desert him now for all that the world could give me. Neither for mother nor brother could I do that. Without your leave I would not have given him the right to regard me as his own; but now I cannot take that right back again, even at your wish. I must write to him at once, mamma, and tell him this."

"Clara, at any rate you must not do that, that at least I must forbid."

"Mother, you cannot forbid it now," the daughter said, after walking twice the length of the room in silence. "If I be not allowed to send a letter, I shall leave the house and go to him."

This was all very dreadful. Lady Desmond was astounded at the manner in which her daughter carried herself, and the voice with which she spoke. The form of her face was altered, and the very step with which she trod was unlike her usual gait. What would Lady Desmond do? She was not prepared to confine her daughter as a prisoner, nor could she publicly forbid the people about the place to go upon her message.

"I did not expect that you would have been so undutiful," she said.

"I hope I am not so," Clara answered. "But now my first duty is to him. Did you not sanction our loving each other? People cannot call back their hearts and their pledges."

"You will, at any rate, wait till tomorrow, Clara."

"It is dark now," said Clara, despondingly, looking out through the window upon the falling night; "I suppose I cannot send to-night."

"And you will show me what you write, dearest?"

"No, mamma. If I wrote it for your eyes it could not be the same as if I wrote it only for his."

Very gloomy, sombre, and silent, was the Countess of Desmond all that night. Nothing further was said about the Fitzgeralds between her and her daughter, before they went to bed; and then Lady Desmond did speak a few futile words.

"Clara," she said. "You had better think over what we have been saying, in bed to-night. You will be more collected to-morrow morning."

"I shall think of it of course," said Clara; "but thinking can make no difference," and then just touching her mother's forehead with her lips she went off slowly to her room.

What sort of a letter she wrote when she got there, we have already seen; and have seen also that she took effective steps to have her letter carried to Castle Richmond at an hour sufficiently early in the morning. There was no danger that the countess would stop the message, for the letter had been read twenty times by Emmeline and Mary, and had been carried by Herbert to his mother's room, before Lady Desmond had left her bed. "Do not set your heart on it too warmly," said Herbert's mother to him.

"But is she not excellent?" said Herbert. "It is because she speaks of you in such a way--"

"You would not wish to bring her into misery, because of her excellence."

"But, mother, I am still a man," said Herbert. This was too much for the suffering woman, the one fault of whose life had brought her son to such a pass, and throwing her arm round his neck she wept upon his shoulders.

There were other messengers went and came that day between Desmond Court and Castle Richmond. Clara and her mother saw nothing of each other early in the morning; they did not breakfast together, nor was there a word said between them on the subject of the Fitzgeralds. But Lady Desmond early in the morning--early for her, that is--sent her note also to Castle Richmond. It was addressed to Aunt Letty, Miss Letitia Fitzgerald, and went to say that Lady Desmond was very anxious to see Miss Letty. Under the present circumstances of the family, as described to Lady Desmond by Mr. Herbert Fitzgerald, she felt that she could not ask to see "his mother";--it was thus that she overcame the difficulty which presented itself to her as to the proper title now to be given to Lady Fitzgerald;--but perhaps Miss Letty would be good enough to see her, if she called at such and such an hour. Aunt Letty, much perplexed, had nothing for it, but to say that she would see her. The countess must now be looked on as closely connected with the family--at any rate, until that match were broken off; and therefore Aunt Letty had no alternative. And so, precisely at the hour named, the countess and Aunt Letty were seated together in the little breakfast-room of which mention has before been made.

No two women were ever closeted together who were more unlike each other,--except that they had one common strong love for family rank. But in Aunt Letty it must be acknowledged that this passion was not unwholesome or malevolent in its course of action. She delighted in being a Fitzgerald, and in knowing that her branch of the Fitzgeralds had been considerable people ever since her Norman ancestor had come over to Ireland with Strongbow. But then she had a useful idea that considerable people should do a considerable deal of good. Her family pride operated more inwardly than outwardly,--inwardly as regarded her own family, and not outwardly as regarded the world. Her brother, and her nephew, and her sister-in-law, and nieces, were, she thought, among the highest commoners in Ireland; they were gentlefolks of the first water, and walked openly before the world accordingly, proving their claim to gentle blood by gentle deeds and honest conduct. Perhaps she did think too much of the Fitzgeralds of Castle Richmond; but the sin was one of which no recording angel could have made much in his entry. That she was a stupid old woman, prejudiced in the highest degree, and horribly ignorant of all the world beyond her own very narrow circle,--even of that, I do not think that the recording angel could, under the circumstances, have made a great deal.

And now how was her family pride affected by this horrible catastrophe that had been made known to her? Herbert the heir, whom as heir she had almost idolized, was nobody. Her sister-in-law, whom she had learned to love with the whole of her big heart, was no sister-in-law. Her brother was one, who, in lieu of adding glory to the family, would always be regarded as the most unfortunate of the Fitzgerald baronets. But with her, human nature was stronger than family pride, and she loved them all, not better, but more tenderly than ever.

The two ladies were closeted together for about two hours; and then, when the door was opened, Aunt Letty might have been seen with her bonnet much on one side, and her poor old eyes and cheeks red with weeping. The countess, too, held her handkerchief to her eyes as she got back into her pony-carriage. She saw no one else there but Aunt Letty; and from her mood when she returned to Desmond Court it might be surmised that from Aunt Letty she had learned little to comfort her.

"They will be beggars!" she said to herself--"beggars!"--when the door of her own room had closed upon her. And there are few people in the world who held such beggary in less esteem than did the Countess of Desmond. It may almost be said that she hated herself on account of her own poverty.

CHAPTER XXIX

ILL NEWS FLIES FAST

A dull, cold, wretched week passed over their heads at Castle Richmond, during which they did nothing but realize the truth of their position; and then came a letter from Mr. Prendergast, addressed to Herbert, in which he stated that such inquiries as he had hitherto made left no doubt on his mind that the man named Mollett, who had lately made repeated visits at Castle Richmond, was he who had formerly taken the house in Dorsetshire under the name of Talbot. In his packet Mr. Prendergast sent copies of documents and of verbal evidence which he had managed to obtain; but with the actual details of these it is not necessary that I should trouble those who are following me in this story. In this letter Mr. Prendergast also recommended that some intercourse should be had with Owen Fitzgerald. It was expedient, he said, that all the parties concerned should recognize Owen's position as the heir presumptive to the title and estate; and as he, he said, had found Mr. Fitzgerald of Hap House to be forbearing, generous, and high-spirited, he thought that this intercourse might be conducted without enmity or ill blood. And then he suggested that Mr. Somers should see Owen Fitzgerald.

All this Herbert explained to his father gently and without complaint; but it seemed now as though Sir Thomas had ceased to interest himself in the matter. Such battle as it had been in his power to make he had made to save his son's heritage and his wife's name and happiness, even at the expense of his own conscience. That battle had gone altogether against him, and now there was nothing left for him but to turn his face to the wall and die. Absolute ruin, through his fault, had come upon him and all that belonged to him,--ruin that would now be known to the world at large; and it was beyond his power to face that world again. In that the glory was gone from the house of his son, and of his son's mother, the glory was gone from his own house. He made no attempt to leave his bed, though strongly recommended so to do by his own family doctor. And then a physician came down from Dublin, who could only feel, whatever he might say, how impossible it is to administer to a mind diseased. The mind of that poor man was diseased past all curing in this world, and there was nothing left for him but to die.

Herbert, of course, answered Clara's letter, but he did not go over to see her during that week, nor indeed for some little time afterwards. He answered it at considerable length, professing his ready willingness to give back to Clara her troth, and even recommending her, with very strong logic and unanswerable arguments of worldly sense, to regard their union as unwise and even impossible; but nevertheless there protruded through all his sense and all his rhetoric, evidences of love and of a desire for love returned, which were much more unanswerable than his arguments, and much stronger than his logic. Clara read his letter, not as he would have advised her to read it, but certainly in the manner which best pleased his heart, and answered it again, declaring that all that he said was no avail. He might be false to her if he would. If through fickleness of heart and purpose he chose to abandon her, she would never complain--never at least aloud. But she would not be false to him, nor were her inclinations such as to make it likely that she should be fickle, even though her affection might be tried by a delay of years. Love with her had been too serious to be thrown aside. All which was rather strong language on the part of a young lady, but was thought by those other young ladies at Castle Richmond to show the very essence of becoming young-ladyhood. They pronounced Clara to be perfect in feeling and in judgment, and Herbert could not find it in his heart to contradict them.

And of all these doings, writings, and resolves, Clara dutifully told her mother. Poor Lady Desmond was at her wits' end in the matter. She could scold her daughter, but she had no other power of doing anything. Clara had so taken the bit between her teeth that it was no longer possible to check her with any usual rein. In these days young ladies are seldom deprived by force of paper, pen, and ink, and the absolute incarceration of such an offender would be still more unusual. Another countess would have taken her daughter away, either to London and a series of balls, or to the South of Italy, or to the family castle in the North of Scotland, but poor Lady Desmond had not the power of other countesses. Now that it was put to the trial, she found that she had no power, even over her own daughter. "Mamma, it was your own doing," Clara would say; and the countess would feel that this alluded not only to her daughter's engagement with Herbert the disinherited, but also to her non-engagement with Owen the heir.

Under these circumstances Lady Desmond sent for her son. The earl was still at Eton, but was now grown to be almost a man--such a man as forward Eton boys are at sixteen--tall, and lathy, and handsome, with soft incipient whiskers, a bold brow and blushing cheeks, with all a boy's love for frolic still strong within him, but some touch of a man's pride to check it. In her difficulty Lady Desmond sent for the young earl, who had now not been home since the previous midsummer, hoping that his young manhood might have some effect in saving his sister from the disgrace of a marriage which would make her so totally bankrupt both in wealth and rank.

Mr. Somers did go once to Hap House, at Herbert's instigation; but very little came of his visit. He had always disliked Owen, regarding him as an unthrift, any close connexion with whom could only bring contamination on the Fitzgerald property; and Owen had returned the feeling tenfold. His pride had been wounded by what he had considered to be the agent's insolence, and he had stigmatized Mr. Somers to his friends as a self-seeking, mercenary prig. Very little, therefore, came of the visit. Mr. Somers, to give him his due, had attempted to do his best; being anxious, for Herbert's sake, to conciliate Owen; perhaps having--and why not?--some eye to the future agency. But Owen was hard, and cold, and uncommunicative,--very unlike what he had before been to Mr. Prendergast. But then Mr. Prendergast had never offended his pride.

"You may tell my cousin Herbert," he said, with some little special emphasis on the word cousin, "that I shall be glad to see him, as soon as he feels himself able to meet me. It will be for the good of us both that we should have some conversation together. Will you tell him, Mr. Somers, that I shall be happy to go to him, or to see him here? Perhaps my going to Castle Richmond, during the present illness of Sir Thomas, may be inconvenient." And this was all that Mr. Somers could get from him.

In a very short time the whole story became known to everybody round the neighbourhood. And what would have been the good of keeping it secret? There are some secrets,--kept as secrets because they cannot well be discussed openly,--which may be allowed to leak out with so much advantage! The day must come, and that apparently at no distant time, when all the world would know the fate of that Fitzgerald family; when Sir Owen must walk into the hall of Castle Richmond, the undoubted owner of the mansion and demesne. Why then keep it secret? Herbert openly declared his wish to Mr. Somers that there should be no secret in the matter. "There is no disgrace," he said, thinking of his mother; "nothing to be ashamed of, let the world say what it will."

Down in the servants' hall the news came to them gradually, whispered about from one to another. They hardly understood what it meant, or how it had come to pass; but they did know that their master's marriage had been no marriage, and that their master's son was no heir. Mrs. Jones said not a word in the matter to any one. Indeed, since that day on which she had been confronted with Mollett, she had not associated with the servants at all, but had kept herself close to her mistress. She understood what it all meant perfectly; and the depth of the tragedy had so cowed her spirit that she hardly dared to speak of it. Who told the servants,--or who does tell servants of such matters, it is impossible to say, but before Mr. Prendergast had been three days out of the house they all knew that the Mr. Owen of Hap House was to be the future master of Castle Richmond.

"An' a sore day it'll be; a sore day, a sore day," said Richard, seated in an armchair by the fire, at the end of the servants' hall, shaking his head despondingly.

"Faix, an' you may say that," said Corney, the footman. "That Misther Owen will go tatthering away to the divil, when the old place comes into his hans. No fear he'll make it fly."

"Sorrow seize the ould lawyer for coming down here at all at all," said the cook.

"I never knew no good come of thim dry ould bachelors," said Biddy the housemaid; "specially the Englishers."

"The two of yez are no better nor simpletons," said Richard, magisterially. "'Twarn't he that done it. The likes of him couldn't do the likes o' that."

"And what was it as done it?" said Biddy.

"Ax no questions, and may be you'll be tould no lies," replied Richard.

"In course we all knows it's along of her ladyship's marriage which warn't no marriage," said the cook. "May the heavens be her bed when the Lord takes her! A betther lady nor a kinder-hearted niver stepped the floor of a kitchen."

"'Deed an that's thrue for you, cook," said Biddy, with the corner of her apron up to her eyes. "But tell me, Richard, won't poor Mr. Herbert have nothing?"

"Never you mind about Mr. Herbert," said Richard, who had seen Biddy grow up from a slip of a girl, and therefore was competent to snub her at every word.

"Ah, but I do mind," said the girl. "I minds more about him than ere a one of 'em; and av' that Lady Clara won't have em a cause of this--"

"Not a step she won't, thin," said Corney. "She'll go back to Mr. Owen. He was her fust love. You'll see else." And so the matter was discussed in the servants' hall at the great house.

But perhaps the greatest surprise, the greatest curiosity, and the greatest consternation, were felt at the parsonage. The rumour reached Mr. Townsend at one of the Relief Committees;--and Mrs. Townsend from the mouth of one of her servants, during his absence, on the same day; and when Mr. Townsend returned to the parsonage, they met each other with blank faces.

"Oh, Aeneas!" said she, before she could get his greatcoat from off his shoulders, "have you heard the news?"

"What news?--about Castle Richmond?"

"Yes; about Castle Richmond." And then she knew that he had heard it.

Some glimmering of Lady Fitzgerald's early history had been known to both of them, as it had been known almost to all in the country; but in late years this history had been so much forgotten, that men had ceased to talk of it, and this calamity therefore came with all the weight of a new misfortune.

"And, Aeneas, who told you of it?" she asked, as they sat together over the fire, in their dingy, dirty parlour.

"Well, strange to say, I heard it first from Father Barney."

"Oh, mercy! and is it all about the country in that way?"

"Herbert, you know, has not been at any one of the Committees for the last ten days, and Mr. Somers for the last week past has been as silent as death; so much so, that that horrid creature, Father Columb, would have made a regular set speech the other day at Gortnaclough, if I hadn't put him down."

"Dear, dear, dear!" said Mrs. Townsend.

"And I was talking to Father Barney about this, to-day--about Mr. Somers, that is."

"Yes, yes, yes!"

"And then he said, 'I suppose you know what has happened at Castle Richmond?'"

"How on earth had he learned?" asked Mrs. Townsend, jealous that a Roman Catholic priest should have heard such completely Protestant news before the Protestant parson and his wife.

"Oh, they learn everything--from the servants, I suppose."

"Of course, the mean creatures!" said Mrs. Townsend, forgetting, probably, her own little conversation with her own man-of-all-work that morning. "But go on, Aeneas."

"'What has happened,' said I, 'at Castle Richmond?' 'Oh, you haven't heard,' said he. And I was obliged to own that I had not, though I saw that it gave him a kind of triumph. 'Why,' said he, 'very bad news has reached them indeed; the worst of news.' And then he told me about Lady Fitzgerald. To give him his due, I must say that he was very sorry--very sorry. 'The poor young fellow!' he said--'the poor young fellow!' And I saw that he turned away his face to hide a tear."

"Crocodile tears!" said Mrs. Townsend.

"No, they were not," said her reverend lord; "and Father Barney is not so bad as I once thought him."

"I hope you are not going over too, Aeneas?" And his consort almost cried as such a horrid thought entered her head. In her ideas any feeling short of absolute enmity to a servant of the Church of Rome was an abandonment of some portion of the Protestant basis of the Church of England. "The small end of the wedge," she would call it, when people around her would suggest that that the heart of a Roman Catholic priest might possibly not be altogether black and devilish.

"Well, I hope not, my dear," said Mr. Townsend, with a slight touch of sarcasm in his voice. "But, as I was saying, Father Barney told me then that this Mr. Prendergast--"

"Oh, I had known of his being there from the day of his coming."

"This Mr Prendergast, it seems, knew the whole affair, from beginning to end."

"But how did he know it, Aeneas?"

"That I can't tell you. He was a friend of Sir Thomas before his marriage, I know that. And he has told them that it is of no use their attempting to keep it secret. He was over at Hap House with Owen Fitzgerald before he went."

"And has Owen Fitzgerald been told?"

"Yes, he has been told--told that he is to be the next heir, so Father Barney says."

Mrs. Townsend wished in her heart that the news could have reached her through a purer source, but all this, coming though it did from Father Barney, tallied too completely with what she herself had heard to leave on her mind any doubt of its truth. And then she began to think of Lady Fitzgerald and her condition, of Herbert and of his, and of the condition of them all, till by degrees her mind passed away from Father Barney and all his iniquities.

"It is very dreadful," she said, in a low voice.

"Very dreadful, very dreadful. I hardly know how to think of it. And I fear that Sir Thomas will not live many months to give them even the benefit of his life interest."

"And when he dies all will be gone?"

"Everything."

And then tears stood in her eyes also, and in his also after a while. It is very easy for a clergyman in his pulpit to preach eloquently upon the vileness of worldly wealth, and the futility of worldly station; but where will you ever find one who, when the time of proof shall come, will give proof that he himself feels what he preaches? Mr. Townsend was customarily loud and eager upon this subject, and yet he was now shedding tears because his young friend Herbert was deprived of his inheritance.

CHAPTER XXX

PALLIDA MORS

Mr. Somers, returning from Hap House, gave Owen's message to Herbert Fitzgerald, but at the same time told him that he did not think any good would come of such a meeting.

"I went over there," he said, "because I would not willingly omit anything that Mr. Prendergast had suggested; but I did not expect any good to come of it. You know what I have always thought of Owen Fitzgerald."

"But Mr. Prendergast said that he behaved so well."

"He did not know Prendergast, and was cowed for the moment by what he had heard. That was natural enough. You do as you like, however; only do not have him over to Castle Richmond."

Owen, however, did not trust solely to Mr. Somers, but on the following day wrote to Herbert, suggesting that they had better meet, and begging that the place and time of meeting might be named. He himself again suggested Hap House, and declared that he would be at home on any day and at any hour that his "cousin" might name, "only," as he added, "the sooner the better." Herbert wrote back by the same messenger, saying that he would be with him early on the following morning; and on the following morning he drove up to the door of Hap House, while Owen was still sitting with his coffee-pot and knife and fork before him.

Captain Donnellan, whom we saw there on the occasion of our first morning visit, was now gone, and Owen Fitzgerald was all alone in his home. The captain had been an accustomed guest, spending perhaps half his time there during the hunting season, but since Mr. Prendergast had been at Hap House, he had been made to understand that the master would fain be alone. And since that day Owen had never hunted, nor been noticed in his old haunts, nor had been seen talking to his old friends. He had remained at home, sitting over the fire thinking, wandering up and down his own avenue, or standing about the stable, idly, almost unconscious of the grooming of his horses. Once and once only he had been mounted, and then as the dusk of evening was coming on he had trotted over quickly to Desmond Court, as though he had in hand some purport of great moment, but if so he changed his mind when he came to the gate, for he walked on slowly for three or four hundred yards beyond it, and then, turning his horse's head, slowly made his way back past the gate, and then trotted quickly home to Hap House. In these moments of his life he must make or mar himself for life, 'twas so that he felt it, and how should he make himself, or how avoid the marring? That was the question which he now strove to answer.

When Herbert entered the room, he rose from his chair, and walked quickly up to his visitor, with extended hand, and a look of welcome in his face. His manner was very different from that with which he had turned and parted from his cousin not many days since in the demesne at Castle Richmond. Then he had intended absolutely to defy Herbert Fitzgerald; but there was no spirit of defiance now, either in his hand, or face, or in the tone of his voice.

"I am very glad you have come," said he. "I hope you understood that I would have gone to you, only that I thought it might be better for both of us to be here."

Herbert said something to the effect that he had been quite willing to come over to Hap House. But he was not at the moment so self-possessed as the other, and hardly knew how to begin the subject which was to be discussed between them.

"Of course you know that Mr. Prendergast was here?" said Owen.

"Oh yes," said Herbert.

"And Mr. Somers also? I tell you fairly, Herbert, that when Mr. Somers came, I was not willing to say much to him. What has to be said must be said between you and me, and not to any third party. I could not open my heart, nor yet speak my thoughts, to Mr. Somers."

In answer to this, Herbert again said that Owen need have no scruple in speaking to him. "It is all plain sailing; too plain, I fear," said he. "There is no doubt whatever now as to the truth of what Mr. Prendergast has told you."

And then having said so much, Herbert waited for Owen to speak. He, Herbert himself, had little or nothing to say. Castle Richmond with its title and acres was not to be his, but was to be the property of this man with whom he was now sitting. When that was actually and positively understood between them, there was nothing further to be said; nothing as far as Herbert knew. That other sorrow of his, that other and deeper sorrow which affected his mother's name and station,--as to that he did not find himself called on to speak to Owen Fitzgerald. Nor was it necessary that he should say anything as to his great consolation--the consolation which had reached him from Clara Desmond.

"And is it true, Herbert," asked Owen at last, "that my uncle is so very ill?" In the time of their kindly intercourse, Owen had always called Sir Thomas his uncle, though latterly he had ceased to do so.

"He is very ill; very ill indeed," said Herbert. This was a subject in which Owen had certainly a right to feel interested, seeing that his own investiture would follow immediately on the death of Sir Thomas; but Herbert almost felt that the question might as well have been spared. It had been asked, however, almost solely with the view of gaining some few moments.

"Herbert," he said at last, standing up from his chair, as he made an effort to begin his speech, "I don't know how far you will believe me when I tell you that all this news has caused me great sorrow. I grieve for your father and your mother, and for you, from the very bottom of my heart."

"It is very kind of you," said Herbert. "But the blow has fallen, and as for myself, I believe that I can bear it. I do not care so very much about the property."

"Nor do I;" and now Owen spoke rather louder, and with his own look of strong impulse about his mouth and forehead. "Nor do I care so much about the property. You were welcome to it; and are so still. I have never coveted it from you, and do not covet it."

"It will be yours now without coveting," replied Herbert; and then there was another pause, during which Herbert sat still, while Owen stood leaning with his back against the mantelpiece.

"Herbert," said he, after they had thus remained silent for two or three minutes, "I have made up my mind on this matter, and I will tell you truly what I do desire, and what I do not. I do not desire your inheritance, but I do desire that Clara Desmond shall be my wife."

"Owen," said the other, also getting up, "I did not expect when I came here that you would have spoken to me about this."

"It was that we might speak about this that I asked you to come here. But listen to me. When I say that I want Clara Desmond to be my wife, I mean to say that I want that, and that only. It may be true that I am, or shall be, legally the heir to your father's estate. Herbert, I will relinquish all that, because I do not feel it to be my own. I will relinquish it in any way that may separate myself from it most thoroughly. But in return, do you separate yourself from her who was my own before you had ever known her."

And thus he did make the proposition as to which he had been making up his mind since the morning on which Mr. Prendergast had come to him.

Herbert for a while was struck dumb with amazement, not so much at the quixotic generosity of the proposal, as at the singular mind of the man in thinking that such a plan could be carried out. Herbert's best quality was no doubt his sturdy common sense, and that was shocked by a suggestion which presumed that all the legalities and ordinary bonds of life could be upset by such an agreement between two young men. He knew that Owen Fitzgerald could not give away his title to an estate of fourteen thousand a year in this off-hand way, and that no one could accept such a gift were it possible to be given. The estate and title must belong to Owen, and could not possibly belong to any one else, merely at his word and fancy. And then again, how could the love of a girl like Clara Desmond be bandied to and fro at the will of any suitor or suitors? That she had once accepted Owen's love, Herbert knew; but since that, in a soberer mood, and with maturer judgment, she had accepted his. How could he give it up to another, or how could that other take possession of it if so abandoned? The bargain was one quite impossible to be carried out; and yet Owen in proposing it had fully intended to be as good as his word.

"That is impossible," said Herbert, in a low voice.

"Why impossible? May I not do what I like with that which is my own? It is not impossible. I will have nothing to do with that property of yours. In fact, it is not my own, and I will not take it; I will not rob you of that which you have been born to expect. But in return for this--"

"Owen, do not talk of it; would you abandon a girl whom you loved for any wealth, or any property?"

"You cannot love her as I love her. I will talk to you on this matter openly, as I have never yet talked to any one. Since first I saw Clara Desmond, the only wish of my life has been that I might have her for my wife. I have longed for her as a child longs--if you know what I mean by that. When I saw that she was old enough to understand what love meant, I told her what was in my heart, and she accepted my love. She swore to me that she would be mine, let mother or brother say what they would. As sure as you are standing there a living man she loved me with all truth. And that I loved her--! Herbert, I have never loved aught but her; nothing else!--neither man nor woman, nor wealth nor title. All I ask is that I may have that which was my own."

"But, Owen--" and Herbert touched his cousin's arm.

"Well; why do you not speak? I have spoken plainly enough."

"It is not easy to speak plainly on all subjects. I would not, if I could avoid it, say a word that would hurt your feelings."

"Never mind my feelings. Speak out, and let us have the truth, in God's name. My feelings have never been much considered yet--either in this matter or in any other."

"It seems to me," said Herbert, "that the giving of Lady Clara's hand cannot depend on your will, or on mine."

"You mean her mother."

"No, by no means. Her mother now would be the last to favour me. I mean herself. If she loves me, as I hope and believe--nay, am sure--"

"She did love me!" shouted Owen.

"But even if so--I do not now say anything of that; but even if so, surely you would not have her marry you if she does not love you still? You would not wish her to be your wife if her heart belongs to me?"

"It has been given you at her mother's bidding."

"However given it is now my own, and it cannot be returned. Look here, Owen. I will show you her last two letters, if you will allow me; not in pride, I hope, but that you may truly know what are her wishes." And he took from his breast, where they had been ever since he received them, the two letters which Clara had written to him. Owen read them both twice over before he spoke, first one and then the other, and an indescribable look of pain fell on his brow as he did so. They were so tenderly worded, so sweet, so generous! He would have given all the world to have had those letters addressed by her to himself. But even they did not convince him. His heart had never changed, and he could not believe that there had been any change in hers.

"I might have known," he said, as he gave them back, "that she would be too noble to abandon you in your distress. As long as you were rich I might have had some chance of getting her back, despite the machinations of her mother. But now that she thinks you are poor--" And then he stopped, and hid his face between his hands.

And in what he had last said there was undoubtedly something of truth. Clara's love for Herbert had never been passionate, till passion had been created by his misfortune. And in her thoughts of Owen there had been much of regret. Though she had resolved to withdraw her love, she had not wholly ceased to love him. Judgment had bade her to break her word to him, and she had obeyed her judgment. She had admitted to herself that her mother was right in telling her that she could not join her own bankrupt fortunes to the fortunes of one who was both poor and a spendthrift, and thus she had plucked from her heart the picture of the man she had loved,--or endeavoured so to pluck it. Some love for him, however, had unwittingly lingered there. And then Herbert had come with his suit, a suitor fitted for her in every way. She had not loved him as she had loved Owen. She had never felt that she could worship him, and tremble at the tones of his voice, and watch the glance of his eye, and gaze into his face as though he were half divine. But she acknowledged his worth, and valued him: she knew that it behoved her to choose some suitor as her husband; and now that her dream was gone, where could she choose better than here? And thus Herbert had been accepted. He had been accepted, but the dream was not wholly gone. Owen was in adversity, ill spoken of by those around her, shunned by his own relatives, living darkly, away from all that is soft in life; and for these reasons Clara could not wholly forget her dream. She had, in some sort, unconsciously clung to her old love, till he to whom she had plighted her new troth was in adversity,--and then all was changed. Then her love for Herbert did become a passion; and then, as Owen had become rich, she felt that she could think of him without remorse. He was quite right in perceiving that his chance was gone now that Herbert had ceased to be rich.

"Owen," said Herbert, and his voice was full of tenderness, for at this moment he felt that he did love and pity his cousin, "we must each of us bear the weight which fortune has thrown on us. It may be that we are neither of us to be envied. I have lost all that men generally value, and you--"

"I have lost all on earth that is valuable to me. But no, it is not lost,--not lost as yet. As long as her name is Clara Desmond, she is as open for me to win as she is for you. And, Herbert, think of it before you make me your enemy. See what I offer you,--not as a bargain, mind you. I give up all my title to your father's property. I will sign any paper that your lawyers may bring to me, which may serve to give you back your inheritance. As for me, I would scorn to take that which belongs in justice to another. I will not have your property. Come what may, I will not have it. I will give it up to you, either as to my enemy or as to my friend."

"I sincerely hope that we may be friends, but what you say is impossible."

"It is not impossible. I hereby pledge myself that I will not take an acre of your father's lands; but I pledge myself also that I will always be your enemy if Clara Desmond becomes your wife: and I mean what I say. I have set my heart on one thing, and on one thing only, and if I am ruined in that I am ruined indeed."

Herbert remained silent, for he had nothing further that he knew how to plead; he felt as other men would feel, that each of them must keep that which Fate had given him. Fate had decreed that Owen should be the heir to Castle Richmond, and the decree thus gone forth must stand valid; and Fate had also decreed that Owen should be rejected by Clara Desmond, which other decree, as Herbert thought, must be held as valid also. But he had no further inclination to argue upon the subject: his cousin was becoming hot and angry; and Herbert was beginning to wish that he was on his way home, that he might be once more at his father's bedside, or in his mother's room, comforting her and being comforted.

"Well," said Owen, after a while in his deep-toned voice, "what do you say to my offer?"

"I have nothing further to say: we must each take our own course; as for me, I have lost everything but one thing, and it is not likely that I shall throw that away from me."

"Nor, so help me Heaven in my need! will I let that thing be filched from me. I have offered you kindness and brotherly love, and wealth, and all that friendship could do for a man, give me my way in this, and I will be to you such a comrade and such a brother."

"Should I be a man, Owen, were I to give up this?"

"Be a man! Yes! It is pride on your part. You do not love her; you have never loved her as I have loved; you have not sat apart long months and months thinking of her, as I have done. From the time she was a child I marked her as my own. As God will help me when I die, she is all that I have coveted in this world;--all! But her I have coveted with such longings of the heart, that I cannot bring myself to live without her;--nor will I." And then again they both were silent.

"It may be as well that we should part now," said Herbert at last. "I do not know that we can gain anything by further talking on this subject."

"Well, you know that best; but I have one further question to ask you."

"What is it, Owen?"

"You still think of marrying Clara Desmond?"

"Certainly; of course I think of it."

"And when? I presume you are not so chicken-hearted as to be afraid of speaking out openly what you intend to do."

"I cannot say when; I had hoped that it would have been very soon; but all this will of course delay it. It may be years first."

These last were the only pleasant words that Owen had heard. If there were to be a delay of years, might not his chance still be as good as Herbert's? But then this delay was to be the consequence of his cousin's ruined prospects--and the accomplishment of that ruin Owen had pledged himself to prevent! Was he by his own deed to enable his enemy to take that very step which he was so firmly resolved to prevent?

"You will give me your promise," said he, "that you will not marry her for the next three years? Make me that promise, and I will make you the same."

Herbert felt that there could be no possibility of his now marrying within the time named, but nevertheless he would not bring himself to make such a promise as this. He would make no bargain about Clara Desmond, about his Clara, which could in any way admit a doubt as to his own right. Had Owen asked him to promise that he would not marry her during the next week he would have given no such pledge. "No," said he, "I cannot promise that."

"She is now only seventeen."

"It does not matter. I will make no such promise, because on such a subject you have no right to ask for any. When she will consent to run her risk of happiness in coming to me, then I shall marry her."

Owen was now walking up and down the room with rapid steps. "You have not the courage to fight me fairly," said he.

"I do not wish to fight you at all."

"Ah, but you must fight me! Shall I see the prey taken out of my jaws, and not struggle for it? No, by heavens! you must fight me; and I tell you fairly, that the fight shall be as hard as I can make it. I have offered you that which one living man is seldom able to offer to another,--money, and land, and wealth, and station; all these things I throw away from me, because I feel that they should be yours; and I ask only in return the love of a young girl. I ask that because I feel that it should be mine. If it has gone from me--which I do not believe--it has been filched and stolen by a thief in the night. She did love me, if a girl ever loved a man; but she was separated from me, and I bore that patiently because I trusted her. But she was young and weak, and her mother was strong and crafty. She has accepted you at her mother's instance; and were I base enough to keep from you your father's inheritance, her mother would no more give her to you now than she would to me then. This is true; and if you know it to be true--as you do know--you will be mean, and dastard, and a coward--you will be no Fitzgerald if you keep from me that which I have a right to claim as my own. Not fight! Ay, but you must fight. We cannot both live here in this country if Clara Desmond become your wife. Mark my words, if that take place, you and I cannot live here alongside of each other's houses." He paused for a moment after this, and then added, "You can go now if you will, for I have said out my say."

And Herbert did go,--almost without uttering a word of adieu. What could he say in answer to such threats as these? That his cousin was in every way unreasonable,--as unreasonable in his generosity as he was in his claims, he felt convinced. But an unreasonable man, though he is one whom one would fain conquer by arguments were it possible, is the very man on whom arguments have no avail. A madman is mad because he is mad. Herbert had a great deal that was very sensible to allege in favour of his views, but what use of alleging anything of sense to such a mind as that of Owen Fitzgerald? So he went his way without further speech.

When he was gone, Owen for a time went on walking his room, and then sank again into his chair. Abominably irrational as his method of arranging all these family difficulties will no doubt seem to all who may read it, to him it had appeared not only an easy but a happy mode of bringing back contentment to everybody. He was quite serious in his intention of giving up his position as heir to Castle Richmond. Mr. Prendergast had explained to him that the property was entailed as far as him, but no farther; and had done this, doubtless, with the view, not then expressed, to some friendly arrangement by which a small portion of the property might be saved and restored to the children of Sir Thomas. But Owen had looked at it quite in another light. He had, in justice, no right to inquire into all those circumstances of his old cousin's marriage. Such a union was a marriage in the eye of God, and should be held as such by him. He would take no advantage of so terrible an accident.

He would take no advantage. So he said to himself over and over again; but yet, as he said it, he resolved that he would take advantage. He would not touch the estate; but surely if he abstained from touching it, Herbert would be generous enough to leave to him the solace of his love! And he had no scruple in allotting to Clara the poorer husband instead of the richer. He was no poorer now than when she had accepted him. Looking at it in that light, had he not a right to claim that she should abide by her first acceptance? Could any one be found to justify the theory that a girl may throw over a poor lover because a rich lover comes in the way? Owen had his own ideas of right and wrong--ideas which were not without a basis of strong, rugged justice; and nothing could be more antagonistic to them than such a doctrine as this. And then he still believed in his heart that he was dearer to Clara than that other richer suitor. He heard of her from time to time, and those who had spoken to him had spoken of her as pining for love of him. In this there had been much of the flattery of servants, and something of the subservience of those about him who wished to stand well in his graces. But he had believed it. He was not a conceited man, nor even a vain man. He did not think himself more clever than his cousin; and as for personal appearance, it was a matter to which his thoughts never descended; but he had about him a self-dependence and assurance in his own manhood, which forbade him to doubt the love of one who had told him that she loved him.

And he did not believe in Herbert's love. His cousin was, as he thought, of a calibre too cold for love. That Clara was valued by him, Owen did not doubt--valued for her beauty, for her rank, for her grace and peerless manner; but what had such value as that to do with love? Would Herbert sacrifice everything for Clara Desmond? would he bid Pelion fall on Ossa? would he drink up Esil? All this would Owen do, and more; he would do more than any Laertes had ever dreamed. He would give up for now and for ever all title to those rich lands which made the Fitzgeralds of Castle Richmond the men of greatest mark in all their county.

And thus he fanned himself into a fury as he thought of his cousin's want of generosity. Herbert would be the heir, and because he was the heir he would be the favoured lover. But there might yet be time and opportunity; and at any rate Clara should not marry without knowing what was the whole truth. Herbert was ungenerous, but Clara still might be just. If not,--then, as he had said before, he would fight out the battle to the end as with an enemy.

Herbert, when he got on to his horse to ride home, was forced to acknowledge to himself that no good whatever had come from his visit to Hap House. Words had been spoken which might have been much better left unspoken. An angry man will often cling to his anger because his anger has been spoken; he will do evil because he has threatened evil, and is ashamed to be better than his words. And there was no comfort to be derived from those lavish promises made by Owen with regard to the property. To Herbert's mind they were mere moonshine--very graceful on the part of the maker, but meaning nothing. No one could have Castle Richmond but him who owned it legally. Owen Fitzgerald would become Sir Owen, and would, as a matter of course, be Sir Owen of Castle Richmond. There was no comfort on that score; and then, on that other score, there was so much discomfort. Of giving up his bride Herbert never for a moment thought; but he did think, with increasing annoyance, of the angry threats which had been pronounced against him.

When he rode into the stable-yard as was his wont, he found Richard waiting for him. This was not customary; as in these latter days Richard, though he always drove the car, as a sort of subsidiary coachman to the young ladies to whom the car was supposed to belong in fee, did not act as general groom. He had been promoted beyond this, and was a sort of hanger-on about the house, half indoor servant and half out, doing very much what he liked, and giving advice to everybody, from the cook downwards. He thanked God that he knew his place, he would often say; but nobody else knew it. Nevertheless, everybody liked him; even the poor housemaid whom he snubbed.

"Is anything the matter?" asked Herbert, looking at the man's sorrow-laden face.

'"Deed an' there is, Mr. Herbert; Sir Thomas is--"

"My father is not dead!" exclaimed Herbert.

"Oh no, Mr. Herbert; it's not so bad as that; but he is very failing,--very failing. My lady is with him now."

Herbert ran into the house, and at the bottom of the chief stairs he met one of his sisters, who had heard the steps of his horse.

"Oh, Herbert, I am so glad you have come!" said she. Her eyes and cheeks were red with tears, and her hand, as her brother took it, was cold and numbed.

"What is it, Mary? Is he worse?"

"Oh, so much worse. Mamma and Emmeline are there. He has asked for you three or four times, and always says that he is dying. I had better go up and say that you are here."

"And what does my mother think of it?"

"She has never left him, and therefore I cannot tell; but I know from her face that she thinks that he is--dying. Shall I go up, Herbert?" and so she went; and Herbert, following softly on his toes, stood in the corridor outside the bedroom-door, waiting till his arrival should have been announced. It was but a minute, and then his sister, returning to the door, summoned him to enter.

The room had been nearly darkened, but as there were no curtains to the bed, Herbert could see his mother's face as she knelt on a stool at the bedside. His father was turned away from him, and lay with his hand inside his wife's, and Emmeline was sitting on the foot of the bed, with her face between her hands, striving to stifle her sobs. "Here is Herbert now, dearest," said Lady Fitzgerald, with a low, soft voice, almost a whisper, yet clear enough to cause no effort in the hearing. "I knew that he would not be long." And Herbert, obeying the signal of his mother's eye, passed round to the other side of the bed.

"Father," said he, "are you not so well to-day?"

"My poor boy, my poor ruined boy!" said the dying man, hardly articulating the words as he dropped his wife's hand and took that of his son. Herbert found that it was wet, and clammy, and cold, and almost powerless in its feeble grasp.

"Dearest father, you are wrong if you let that trouble you; all that will never trouble me. Is it not well that a man should earn his own bread? Is it not the lot of all good men?" But still the old man murmured with his broken voice, "My poor boy, my poor boy!"

The hopes and aspirations of his eldest son are as the breath of his nostrils to an Englishman who has been born to land and fortune. What had not this poor man endured in order that his son might be Sir Herbert Fitzgerald of Castle Richmond? But this was no longer possible; and from the moment that this had been brought home to him, the father had felt that for him there was nothing left but to die. "My poor boy," he muttered, "tell me that you have forgiven me."

And then they all knelt round the bed and prayed with him; and afterwards they tried to comfort him, telling him how good he had been to them; and his wife whispered in his ear that if there had been fault, the fault was hers, but that her conscience told her that such fault had been forgiven; and while she said this she motioned the children away from him, and strove to make him understand that human misery could never kill the soul, and should never utterly depress the spirit. "Dearest love," she said, still whispering to him in her low, sweet voice--so dear to him, but utterly inaudible beyond--"if you would cease to accuse yourself so bitterly, you might yet be better, and remain with us to comfort us."

But the slender, half-knit man, whose arms are without muscles and whose back is without pith, will strive in vain to lift the weight which the brawny vigour of another tosses from the ground almost without an effort. It is with the mind and the spirit as with the body; only this, that the muscles of the body can be measured, but not so those of the spirit. Lady Fitzgerald was made of other stuff than Sir Thomas; and that which to her had cost an effort, but with an effort had been done surely, was to him as impossible as the labour of Hercules. "My poor boy, my poor ruined boy!" he still muttered, as she strove to comfort him.

"Mamma has sent for Mr. Townsend," Emmeline whispered to her brother, as they stood together in the bow of the window.

"And do you really think he is so bad as that?"

"I am sure that mamma does. I believe he had some sort of a fit before you came. At any rate, he did not speak for two hours."

"And was not Finucane here?" Finucane was the Mallow doctor.

"Yes; but he had left before papa became so much worse. Mamma has sent for him also."

But I do not know that it boots to dally longer in a dying chamber. It is an axiom of old that the stage curtain should be drawn before the inexorable one enters in upon his final work. Dr. Finucane did come, but his coming was all in vain. Sir Thomas had known that it was in vain, and so also had his patient wife. There was that mind diseased, towards the cure of which no Dr. Finucane could make any possible approach. And Mr. Townsend came also, let us hope not in vain; though the cure which he fain would have perfected can hardly be effected in such moments as those. Let us hope that it had been already effected. The only crying sin which we can lay to the charge of the dying man is that of which we have spoken; he had endeavoured by pensioning falsehood and fraud to preserve for his wife her name, and for his son that son's inheritance. Even over this, deep as it was, the recording angel may have dropped some cleansing tears of pity.

That night the poor man died, and the Fitzgeralds who sat in the chambers of Castle Richmond were no longer the owners of the mansion. There was no speech of Sir Herbert among the servants as there would have been had these tidings not have reached them. Dr. Finucane had remained in the house, and even he, in speaking of the son, had shown that he knew the story. They were strangers there now, as they all knew--intruders, as they would soon be considered in the house of their cousin Owen; or rather not their cousin. In that he was above them by right of his blood, they had no right to claim him as their relation.

It may be said that at such a moment all this should not have been thought of; but those who say so know little, as I imagine, of the true effect of sorrow. No wife and no children ever grieved more heartily for a father; but their grief was blacker and more gloomy in that they knew that they were outcasts in the world.

And during that long night, as Herbert and his sisters sat up cowering round the fire, he told them of all that had been said at Hap House. "And can it not be as he says?" Mary had asked.

"And that Herbert should give up his wife!" said Emmeline.

"No; but the other thing."

"Do not dream of it," said Herbert. "It is all, all impossible. The house that we are now in belongs to Sir Owen Fitzgerald."

CHAPTER XXXI

THE FIRST MONTH

And now I will beg my readers to suppose a month to have passed by since Sir Thomas Fitzgerald died. It was a busy month in Ireland. It may probably be said that so large a sum of money had never been circulated in the country in any one month since money had been known there; and yet it may also be said that so frightful a mortality had never occurred there from the want of that which money brings.

It was well understood by all men now that the customary food of the country had disappeared. There was no longer any difference of opinion between rich and poor, between Protestant and Roman Catholic; as to that, no man dared now to say that the poor, if left to themselves, could feed themselves, or to allege that the sufferings of the country arose from the machinations of money-making speculators. The famine was an established fact, and all men knew that it was God's doing,--all men knew this, though few could recognize as yet with how much mercy God's hand was stretched out over the country.

Or may it not perhaps be truer to say that in such matters there is no such thing as mercy--no special mercies--no other mercy than that fatherly, forbearing, all-seeing, perfect goodness by which the Creator is ever adapting this world to the wants of His creatures, and rectifying the evils arising from their faults and follies? Sed quo Musa tendis? Such discourses of the gods as these are not to be fitly handled in such small measures.

At any rate, there was the famine, undoubted now by any one; and death, who in visiting Castle Richmond may be said to have knocked at the towers of a king, was busy enough also among the cabins of the poor. And now the great fault of those who were the most affected was becoming one which would not have been at first sight expected. One would think that starving men would become violent, taking food by open theft--feeling, and perhaps not without some truth, that the agony of their want robbed such robberies of its sin. But such was by no means the case. I only remember one instance in which the bakers' shops were attacked; and in that instance the work was done by those who were undergoing no real suffering. At Clonmel, in Tipperary, the bread was one morning stripped away from the bakers' shops; but at that time, and in that place, there was nothing approaching to famine. The fault of the people was apathy. It was the feeling of the multitude that the world and all that was good in it was passing away from them; that exertion was useless, and hope hopeless. "Ah, me! your honour," said a man to me, "there'll never be a bit and a sup again in the county Cork! The life of the world is fairly gone!"

And it was very hard to repress this feeling. The energy of a man depends so much on the outward circumstances that encumber him! It is so hard to work when work seems hopeless--so hard to trust where the basis of our faith is so far removed from sight! When large tracts of land went out of cultivation, was it not natural to think that agriculture was receding from the country, leaving the green hills once more to be brown and barren, as hills once green have become in other countries? And when men were falling in the highways, and women would sit with their babes in their arms, listless till death should come to them, was it not natural to think that death was making a huge success--that he, the inexorable one, was now the inexorable indeed?

There were greatly trusting hearts that could withstand the weight of this terrible pressure, and thinking minds which saw that good would come out of this great evil; but such hearts and such minds were not to be looked for among the suffering poor, and were not, perhaps, often found even among those who were not poor or suffering. It was very hard to be thus trusting and thoughtful while everything around was full of awe and agony.

The people, however, were conscious of God's work, and were becoming dull and apathetic. They clustered about the roads, working lazily while their strength lasted them; and afterwards, when strength failed them for this, they clustered more largely in the poor-houses. And in every town--in every assemblage of houses which in England would be called a village, there was a poor-house. Any big barrack of a tenement that could be obtained at a moment's notice, whatever the rent, became a poor-house in the course of twelve hours,--in twelve, nay, in two hours. What was necessary but the bare walls, and a supply of yellow meal? Bad provision this for all a man's wants,--as was said often enough by irrational philanthropists; but better provision than no shelter and no yellow meal! It was bad that men should be locked up at night without any of the appliances of decency; bad that they should be herded together for day after day with no resource but the eating twice a day of enough unsavoury food to keep life and soul together;--very bad, ye philanthropical irrationalists! But is not a choice of evils all that is left to us in many a contingency? Was not even this better than that life and soul should be allowed to part, without any effect at preserving their union?

And thus life and soul were kept together, the government of the day having wisely seen what, at so short a notice, was possible for them to do, and what was absolutely impossible. It is in such emergencies as these that the watching and the wisdom of a government are necessary; and I shall always think--as I did think then--that the wisdom of its action and the wisdom of its abstinence from action were very good. And now again the fields in Ireland are green, and the markets are busy, and money is chucked to and fro like a weathercock which the players do not wish to have abiding with them; and the tardy speculator going over to look for a bit of land comes back muttering angrily that fancy prices are demanded. "They'll run you up to thirty-three years' purchase," says the tardy speculator, thinking, as it seems, that he is specially ill used. Agricultural wages have been nearly doubled in Ireland during the last fifteen years. Think of that, Master Brook. Work for which, at six shillings a week, there would be a hundred hungry claimants in 1845,--in the good old days before the famine, when repeal was so immediately expected--will now fetch ten shillings, the claimants being by no means numerous. In 1843 and 1844, I knew men to work for fourpence a day--something over the dole on which we are told, being mostly incredulous as we hear it, that a Coolie labourer can feed himself with rice in India;--not one man or two men, the broken-down incapables of the parish, but the best labour of the country. One and twopence is now about the cheapest rate at which a man can be hired for agricultural purposes. While this is so, and while the prices are progressing, there is no cause for fear, let Bishops A and B, and Archbishops C and D fret and fume with never so great vexation touching the clipped honours of their father the Pope.

But again, Quo Musa tendis? I could write on this subject for a week were it not that Rhadamanthus awaits me, Rhadamanthus the critic, and Rhadamanthus is, of all things, impatient of an episode.

Life and soul were kept together in those terrible days,--that is, the Irish life and soul generally. There were many slips, in which the union was violently dissolved,--many cases in which the yellow meal allowed was not sufficient, or in which it did not reach the sufferer in time to prevent such dissolution,--cases which when numbered together amounted to thousands. And then the pestilence came, taking its victims by tens of thousands,--but that was after the time with which we shall have concern here; and immigration followed, taking those who were saved by hundreds of thousands. But the millions are still there, a thriving people, for His mercy endureth for ever.

During this month, the month ensuing upon the death of Sir Thomas Fitzgerald, Herbert could of course pay no outward attention to the wants or relief of the people. He could make no offer of assistance, for nothing belonged to him, nor could he aid in the councils of the committees, for no one could have defined the position of the speaker. And during that month nothing was defined about Castle Richmond. Lady Fitzgerald was still always called by her title. The people of the country, including the tradesmen of the neighbouring towns, addressed the owner of Hap House as Sir Owen; and gradually the name was working itself into common use, though he had taken no steps to make himself legally entitled to wear it. But no one spoke of Sir Herbert. The story was so generally known, that none were so ignorant as to suppose him to be his father's heir. The servants about the place still called him Mr. Herbert, orders to that effect having been specially given; and the peasants of the country, with that tact which graces them, and with that anxiety to abstain from giving pain which always accompanies them unless when angered, carefully called him by no name. They knew that he was not Sir Herbert, but they would not believe but what, perchance, he might be so yet on some future day. So they took off their old hats to him, and passed him silently in his sorrow, or if they spoke to him, addressed his honour simply, omitting all mention of that Christian name, which the poor Irishman is generally so fond of using. "Mister Blake" sounds cold and unkindly in his ears. It is the "Masther," or "His honour," or if possible "Misther Thady." Or if there be any handle, that is used with avidity. Pat is a happy man when he can address his landlord as "Sir Patrick."

But now the "ould masther's son" could be called by no name. Men knew not what he was to be, though they knew well that he was not that which he ought to be. And there were some who attempted to worship Owen as the rising sun; but for such of them as had never worshipped him before that game was rather hopeless. In those days he was not much seen, neither hunting nor entertaining company; but when seen he was rough enough with those who made any deep attempt to ingratiate themselves with his coming mightiness. And during this month he went over to London, having been specially invited so to do by Mr. Prendergast; but very little came of his visit there, except that it was certified to him that he was beyond all doubt the baronet. "And there shall be no unnecessary delay, Sir Owen," said Mr. Prendergast, "in putting you into full possession of all your rights." In answer to which Owen had replied that he was not anxious to be put in possession of any rights. That as far as any active doing of his own was concerned, the title might lie in abeyance, and that regarding the property he would make known his wish to Mr. Prendergast very quickly after his return to Ireland. But he intimated at the same time that there could be no ground for disturbing Lady Fitzgerald, as he had no intention under any circumstances of living at Castle Richmond.

"Had you not better tell Lady Fitzgerald that yourself?" said Mr. Prendergast, catching at the idea that his friend's widow--my readers will allow me so to call her--might be allowed to live undisturbed at the family mansion, if not for life, at any rate for a few years. If this young man were so generous, why should it not be so? He would not want the big house, at any rate, till he were married.

"It would be better that you should say so," said Owen. "I have particular reasons for not wishing to go there."

"But allow me to say, my dear young friend--and I hope I may call you so, for I greatly admire the way in which you have taken all these tidings--that I would venture to advise you to drop the remembrance of any unpleasantness that may have existed. You should now feel yourself to be the closest friend of that family."

"So I would if--," and then Owen stopped short, though Mr. Prendergast gave him plenty of time to finish his sentence were he minded to do so.

"In your present position," continued the lawyer, "your influence will be very great."

"I can't explain it all," said Owen; "but I don't think my influence will be great at all. And what is more, I do not want any influence of that sort. I wish Lady Fitzgerald to understand that she is at perfect liberty to stay where she is,--as far as I am concerned. Not as a favour from me, mind; for I do not think that she would take a favour from my hands."

"But, my dear sir!"

"Therefore you had better write to her about remaining there."

Mr. Prendergast did write to her, or rather to Herbert: but in doing so he thought it right to say that the permission to live at Castle Richmond should be regarded as a kindness granted them by their relative. "It is a kindness which, under the circumstances, your mother may, I think, accept without compunction; at any rate, for some time to come,--till she shall have suited herself without hurrying her choice; but, nevertheless, it must be regarded as a generous offer on his part; and I do hope, my dear Herbert, that you and he will be fast friends."

But Mr. Prendergast did not in the least comprehend the workings of Owen's mind; and Herbert, who knew more of them than any one else, did not understand them altogether. Owen had no idea of granting any favour to his relatives, who, as he thought, had never granted any to him. What Owen wanted,--or what he told himself that he wanted,--was justice. It was his duty as a just man to abstain from taking hold of those acres, and he was prepared to do his duty. But it was equally Herbert's duty as a just man to abstain from taking hold of Clara Desmond, and he was resolved that he would never be Herbert's friend if Herbert did not perform that duty. And then, though he felt himself bound to give up the acres,--though he did regard this as an imperative duty, he nevertheless felt also that something was due to him for his readiness to perform such a duty,--that some reward should be conceded to him; what this reward was to be, or rather what he wished it to be, we all know.

Herbert had utterly refused to engage in any such negotiation; but Owen, nevertheless, would not cease to think that something might yet be done. Who was so generous as Clara, and would not Clara herself speak out if she knew how much her old lover was prepared to do for this newer lover? Half a dozen times Owen made up his mind to explain the whole thing to Mr. Prendergast; but when he found himself in the presence of the lawyer, he could not talk about love. Young men are so apt to think that their seniors in age cannot understand romance, or acknowledge the force of a passion. But here they are wrong, for there would be as much romance after forty as before, I take it, were it not checked by the fear of ridicule. So Owen stayed a week in London, seeing Mr. Prendergast every day; and then he returned to Hap House.

In the mean time life went on at a very sad pace at Desmond Court. There was no concord whatever between the two ladies residing there. The mother was silent, gloomy, and sometimes bitter, seldom saying a word about Herbert Fitzgerald or his prospects, but saying that word with great fixity of purpose when it was spoken. "No one," she said, "should attribute to her the poverty and misery of her child. That marriage should not take place from her house, or with her consent." And Clara for the most part was silent also. In answer to such words as the above she would say nothing; but when, as did happen once or twice, she was forced to speak, she declared openly enough that no earthly consideration should induce her to give up her engagement.

And then the young earl came home, brought away from his school in order that his authority might have effect on his sister. To speak the truth, he was unwilling enough to interfere, and would have declined to come at all could he have dared to do so. Eton was now more pleasant to him than Desmond Court, which, indeed, had but little of pleasantness to offer to a lad such as he was now. He was sixteen, and manly for his age, but the question in dispute at Desmond Court offered little attraction even to a manly boy of sixteen. In that former question as to Owen he had said a word or two, knowing that Owen could not be looked upon as a fitting husband for his sister, but now he knew not how to counsel her again as to Herbert, seeing that it was but the other day that he had written a long letter, congratulating her on that connection.

Towards the end of the month, however, he did arrive, making glad his mother's heart as she looked at his strong limbs and his handsome open face. And Clara, too, threw herself so warmly into his arms that he did feel glad that he had come to her. "Oh, Patrick, it is so sweet to have you here!" she said, before his mother had had time to speak to him.

"Dearest Clara!"

"But, Patrick, you must not be cruel to me. Look here, Patrick, you are my only brother, and I so love you that I would not offend you or turn you against me for worlds. You are the head of our family, too, and nothing should be done that you do not like. But if so much depends on you, you must think well before you decide on anything."

He opened his young eyes and looked intently into her face, for there was an earnestness in her words that almost frightened him. "You must think well of it before you speak, Patrick; and remember this, you and I must be honest and honourable, whether we be poor or no. You remember about Owen Fitzgerald, how I gave way then because I could do so without dishonour. But now--"

"But, Clara, I do not understand it all as yet."

"No; you cannot,--not as yet--and I will let mamma tell you the story. All I ask is this, that you will think of my honour before you say a word that can favour either her or me." And then he promised her that he would do so; and his mother, when on the following morning she told him all the history, found him reserved and silent.

"Look at his position," said the mother, pleading her cause before her son. "He is illegitimate, and--"

"Yes, but, mother--"

"I know all that, my dear; I know what you would say; and no one can pity Mr. Fitzgerald's position more than I do; but you would not on that account have your sister ruined. It is romance on her part."

"But what does he say?"

"He is quite willing to give up the match. He has told me so, and said as much to his aunt, whom I have seen three times on the subject."

"Do you mean that he wishes to give it up?"

"No;--at least, I don't know. If he does, he cannot express such a wish, because Clara is so headstrong. Patrick, in my heart I do not believe that she cares for him. I have doubted it for some time."

"But you wanted her to marry him."

"So I did. It was an excellent match, and in a certain way she did like him; and then, you know, there was that great danger about poor Owen. It was a great danger then. But now she is so determined about this, because she thinks it would be ungenerous to go back from her word; and in this way she will ruin the very man she wishes to serve. Of course he cannot break off the match if she persists in it. What I want you to perceive is this, that he, utterly penniless as he is, will have to begin the world with a clog round his neck, because she is so obstinate. What could possibly be worse for him than a titled wife without a penny?" And in this way the countess pleaded her side of the question before her son.

It was quite true that she had been three times to Castle Richmond, and had thrice driven Aunt Letty into a state bordering on distraction. If she could only get the Castle Richmond people to take it up as they ought to do! It was thus she argued with herself,--and with Aunt Letty also, endeavouring to persuade her that these two young people would undoubtedly ruin each other, unless those who were really wise and prudent, and who understood the world--such as Aunt Letty, for instance--would interfere to prevent it.

Aunt Letty on the whole did agree with her, though she greatly disliked her. Miss Fitzgerald had strongly planted within her bosom the prudent old-world notion, that young gentlefolks should not love each other unless they have plenty of money; and that, if unfortunately such did love each other, it was better that they should suffer all the pangs of hopeless love than marry and trust to God and their wits for bread and cheese. To which opinion of Aunt Letty's, as well as to some others entertained by that lady with much pertinacity, I cannot subscribe myself as an adherent.

Lady Desmond had wit enough to discover that Aunt Letty did agree with her in the main, and on this account she was eager in seeking her assistance. Lady Fitzgerald of course could not be seen, and there was no one else at Castle Richmond who could be supposed to have any weight with Herbert. And therefore Lady Desmond was very eloquent with Aunt Letty, talking much of the future miseries of the two young people, till the old lady had promised to use her best efforts in enlisting Lady Fitzgerald on the same side. "You cannot wonder, Miss Fitzgerald, that I should wish to put an end to the cruel position in which my poor girl is placed. You know how much a girl suffers from that kind of thing."

Aunt Letty did dislike Lady Desmond very much; but, nevertheless, she could not deny the truth of all this, and therefore it may be said that the visits of the countess to Castle Richmond were on the whole successful.

And the month wore itself away also in that sad household, and the Fitzgeralds were gradually becoming used to their position. Family discussions were held among them as to what they should do, and where they should live in future. Mr. Prendergast had written, seeing that Owen had persisted in refusing to make the offer personally himself--saying that there was no hurry for any removal. "Sir Owen," he said,--having considered deeply whether or no he would call him by the title or no, and having resolved that it would be best to do so at once--"Sir Owen was inclined to behave very generously. Lady Fitzgerald could have the house and demesne at any rate for twelve months, and by that time the personal property left by Sir Thomas would be realized, and there would be enough," Mr. Prendergast said, "for the three ladies to live 'in decent quiet comfort.'" Mr. Prendergast had taken care before he left Castle Richmond that a will should be made and duly executed by Sir Thomas, leaving what money he had to his three children by name,--in trust for their mother's use. Till the girls should be of age that trust would be vested in Herbert.

"Decent quiet comfort!" said Mary to her brother and sister as they conned the letter over; "how comfortless it sounds!"

And so the first month after the death of Sir Thomas passed by, and the misfortunes of the Fitzgerald family ceased to be the only subject spoken of by the inhabitants of county Cork.