rt might yet be the
man. But even then the countess did not believe it.

But during the next week the rumour became a fact through the
country, and everybody knew, even the Countess of Desmond, that all
that family history was again changed. Lady Fitzgerald, whom they had
all known, was Lady Fitzgerald still, and Herbert was once more on
his throne. When rumours thus became a fact, there was no longer any
doubt about the matter. The countryside did not say that, "perhaps
after all so and so would go in such and such a way," or that "legal
doubts having been entertained, the gentlemen of the long robe were
about to do this and that." By the end of the first week the affair
was as surely settled in county Cork as though the line of the
Fitzgeralds had never been disturbed; and Sir Herbert was fully
seated on his throne.

It was well then for poor Owen that he had never assumed the regalia
of royalty: had he done so his fall would have been very dreadful; as
it was, not only were all those pangs spared to him, but he achieved
at once an immense popularity through the whole country. Everybody
called him poor Owen, and declared how well he had behaved. Some
expressed almost a regret that his generosity should go unrewarded,
and others went so far as to give him his reward: he was to
marry Emmeline Fitzgerald, they said at the clubs in Cork, and a
considerable slice of the property was destined to give additional
charms to the young lady's hand and heart. For a month or so Owen
Fitzgerald was the most popular man in the south of Ireland; that is,
as far as a man can be popular who never shows himself.

And the countess had to answer her daughter's letter. "If this be
so," she said, "of course I shall be well pleased. My anxiety has
been only for your welfare, to further which I have been willing to
make any possible sacrifice." Clara when she read this did not know
what sacrifice had been made, nor had the countess thought as she
wrote the words what had been the sacrifice to which she had thus
alluded, though her heart was ever conscious of it, unconsciously.
And the countess sent her love to them all at Castle Richmond. "She
did not fear," she said, "that they would misinterpret her. Lady
Fitzgerald, she was sure, would perfectly understand that she had
endeavoured to do her duty by her child." It was by no means a
bad letter, and, which was better, was in the main a true letter.
According to her light she had striven t