e said these words, as if carried away
by a momentary excitement to speak of matters not exactly suitable; and
then drawing herself up, she continued in a more measured tone: 'You
know, Captain, one meets such strange people in this world.'

'To be sure, Mrs. Rooney,' said I encouragingly; 'and to one like
yourself, who can appreciate character, Father Loftus is indeed a gem.'

Mrs. Rooney, however, only smiled her assent, and again changed the
course of the conversation.

'You met the Bellews, I suppose, when down in the west?'

'Yes,' stammered I; 'I saw a good deal of Sir Simon when in that
country.'

'Ah, the poor man!' said she with real feeling, 'what an unhappy lot his
has been!'

Supposing that she alluded to his embarrassment as to fortune, the
difficulties which pressed upon him from money causes, I merely muttered
my assent.

'But I suppose,' continued she, 'you have heard the whole story, though
the unhappy event occurred when you were a mere child.'

'I am not aware to what you allude,' said I eagerly, while a suspicion
shot across my mind that the secret of Sir Simon Bellow's letter was at
length to be cleared up.

'Ah,' said Mrs. Rooney with a sigh, 'I mean poor dear Lady Bellow's
affair--when she went away with a major of dragoons; and to be sure
an elegant young man he was, they said. Pole was on the inquest, and I
heard him say he was the handsomest man he ever saw in his life.'

'He died suddenly, then?'

'He was shot by Sir Simon in a duel the very day-week after the
elopement.'

'And she?' said I.

'Poor thing! she died of a consumption, or some say a broken heart, the
same summer.'

'That is a sad story, indeed,' said I musingly; 'and I no longer wonder
that the poor old man should be such as he is.'

'No, indeed; but then he was very much blamed after all, for he never
had that Jerningham out of the house.'

'Horace Jerningham!' cried I, as a cold sickening fear crept over me.

'Oh, yes, that was his name. He was the Honourable Horace Jerningham,
the younger son of some very high family in England; and, indeed,
the elder brother has died since, and they say the title has become
extinct.'

It is needless for me to attempt any description of the feelings that
agitated my heart, when I say that Horace Jerningham was the brother of
my own mother. I remembered when a child to have heard something of
a dreadful duel, when all the family went into deep mourning, and my
mother's h