is early love was completely
forgotten. The feeling with which he regarded her now was rather of
resentment than indifference, and it had been with a secret creeping of
the heart that he had witnessed what he thought was the successful
progress of Kyrle Daly's attachment. It was under those circumstances
that he formed his present hasty union with Eily. His love for her was
deep, sincere, and tender. Her entire and unbounded confidence, her
extreme beauty, her simplicity and timid deference made a soothing
compensation to his heart for the coldness of the haughty, though
superior beauty, whose inconstancy had raised his indignation.

In the morning, accompanied by Eily and Danny Mann, he sailed for
Ballybunion, where they rested in a cavern while the hunchback sought an
eligible lodging for the night. During his absence Hardress told Eily
that Danny Mann was his foster-brother, and that he himself had been the
cause of the poor fellow's deformity.

"When we were children he was my constant companion," he said.
"Familiarity produced a feeling of equality, on which he presumed so far
as to offer rudeness to a little relative of mine, a Miss Chute, who was
on a visit to my mother. She complained to me, and my vengeance was
summary. I seized him by the collar, and hurled him with desperate force
to the bottom of a flight of stairs. An injury was done to his spine."

But Danny Mann had shown naught but good nature and kindly feeling ever
since. His attachment had become the attachment of a zealot. Hardress
was sometimes alarmed at the profane importance he attached to his
master's wishes; he seemed to care but little what laws he might
transgress when the gratification of Hardress's inclination was in
question.

_II.--Tempted_

A week afterwards Hardress visited his parents at their Killarney
residence, to find that his mother, with her niece, Anne Chute, had gone
to a grand ball in the neighbourhood. His father was spending the night
with his boon fellows, and a favourite old huntsman lay dying in a room
near by. This retainer told his young master that Anne Chute loved him
well, and that she deserved a better fortune than to love without
return. Hardress went to bed, and was awakened by his mother upon her
return. She reproved him for his long absence, and told him of the
sensation his beautiful cousin was making in society. In the morning he
met Anne with some consciousness and distress. A womanly reserve and
de