I think, Lady Desmond, if you were to take her in with you it would be well."

Lady Desmond looked up at him; and he then saw, for the first time, that she could if she pleased look very stern. Hitherto her face had always worn smiles, had at any rate always been pleasing when he had seen it. He had never been intimate with her, never intimate enough to care what her face was like, till that day when he had carried her son up from the hall door to his room. Then her countenance had been all anxiety for her darling; and afterwards it had been all sweetness for her darling's friend. From that day to this present one, Lady Desmond had ever given him her sweetest smiles.

But Fitzgerald was not a man to be cowed by any woman's looks. He met hers by a full, front face in return. He did not allow his eye for a moment to fall before hers. And yet he did not look at her haughtily, or with defiance, but with an aspect which showed that he was ashamed of nothing that he had done,--whether he had done anything that he ought to be ashamed of or no.

"Clara," said the countess, in a voice which fell with awful severity on the poor girl's ears, "you had better return to the house with me."

"Yes, mamma."

"And shall I wait on you to-morrow, Lady Desmond?" said Fitzgerald, in a tone which seemed to the countess to be, in the present state of affairs, almost impertinent. The man had certainly been misbehaving himself, and yet there was not about him the slightest symptom of shame.

"Yes; no," said the countess. "That is, I will write a note to you if it be necessary. Good morning."

"Good-bye, Lady Desmond," said Owen. And as he took off his hat with his left hand, he put out his right to shake hands with her, as was customary with him. Lady Desmond was at first inclined to refuse the courtesy; but she either thought better of such intention, or else she had not courage to maintain it; for at parting she did give him her hand.

"Good-bye, Lady Clara;" and he also shook hands with her, and it need hardly be said that there was a lover's pressure in the grasp.

"Good-bye," said Clara, through her tears, in the saddest, soberest tone. He was going away, happy, light-hearted, with nothing to trouble him. But she had to encounter that fearful task of telling her own crime. She had to depart with her mother;--her mother, who, though never absolutely unkind, had so rarely been tender with her. And then her brother--!

"Desmond," said Fitzgerald, "walk as far as the lodge with me like a good fellow. I have something that I want to say to you."

The mother thought for a moment that she would call her son back; but then she bethought herself that she also might as well be without him. So the young earl, showing plainly by his eyes that he knew that much was the matter, went back with Fitzgerald towards the lodge.

"What is it you have done now?" said the earl. The boy had some sort of an idea that the offence committed was with reference to his sister; and his tone was hardly as gracious as was usual with him.

This want of kindliness at the present moment grated on Owen's ears; but he resolved at once to tell the whole story out, and then leave it to the earl to take it in dudgeon or in brotherly friendship as he might please.

"Desmond," said he, "can you not guess what has passed between me and your sister?"

"I am not good at guessing," he answered, brusquely.

"I have told her that I loved her, and would have her for my wife; and I have asked her to love me in return."

There was an open manliness about this which almost disarmed the earl's anger. He had felt a strong attachment to Fitzgerald, and was very unwilling to give up his friendship; but, nevertheless, he had an idea that it was presumption on the part of Mr. Fitzgerald of Hap House to look up to his sister. Between himself and Owen the earl's coronet never weighed a feather; he could not have abandoned his boy's heart to the man's fellowship more thoroughly had that man been an earl as well as himself. But he could not get over the feeling that Fitzgerald's worldly position was beneath that of his sister;--that such a marriage on his sister's part would be a mesalliance. Doubting, therefore, and in some sort dismayed--and in some sort also angry--he did not at once give any reply.

"Well, Desmond, what have you to say to it? You are the head of her family, and young as you are, it is right that I should tell you."

"Tell me! of course you ought to tell me. I don't see what youngness has to do with it. What did she say?"

"Well, she said but little; and a man should never boast that a lady has favoured him. But she did not reject me." He paused a moment, and then added, "After all, honesty and truth are the best. I have reason to think that she loves me."

The poor young lord felt that he had a double duty, and hardly knew how to perform it. He owed a duty to his sister which was paramount to all others; but then he owed a duty also to the friend who had been so kind to him.