for their children. I taught myself,--I strove to teach myself to
forget that I had loved you. I swore on my knees that I would love
you only as my son,--as my dear, dear son. Nay, Owen, I did; on my
knees before my God."

He turned away from her to rub the tears from his eyes, and in doing
so he dragged his hand away from her. But she followed him, and again
took it. "You will hear me to the end now," she said; "will you not?
you will not begrudge me that? And then came these other tidings, and
all that scheme was dashed to the ground. It was better so, Owen; you
would not have been happy with the property--"

"I should never have taken it."

"And she, she would have clung closer to him as a poor man than ever
she had done when he was rich. She is her mother's daughter there.
And then--then-- But I need not tell you more. You will know it all
now. If you had become rich, I would have ceased to love you; but I
shall never cease now that you are again poor,--now that you are Owen
of Hap House again, as you sent us word yourself that day."

And then she ceased, and bending down her head bathed his hand with
her tears. Had any one asked him that morning, he would have said
that it was impossible that the Countess of Desmond should weep.
And now the tears were streaming from her eyes as though she were a
broken-hearted girl. And so she was. Her girlhood had been postponed
and marred,--not destroyed and made away with, by the wrinkled earl
with the gloating eyes.

She had said all now, and she stood there, still holding his hand in
hers, but with her head turned from him. It was his turn to speak
now, and how was he to answer her. I know how most men would have
answered;--by the pressure of an arm, by a warm kiss, by a promise
of love, and by a feeling that such love was possible. And then most
men would have gone home, leaving the woman triumphant, and have
repented bitterly as they sat moody over their own fires, with their
wine-bottles before them. But it was not so with Owen Fitzgerald.
His heart was to him a reality. He had loved with all his power and
strength, with all the vigour of his soul,--having chosen to love.
But he would not now be enticed by pity into a bastard feeling,
which would die away when the tenderness of the moment was no longer
present to his eye and touch. His love for Clara had been such that
he could not even say that he loved another.

"Dear Lady Desmond," he began.

"Ah, Owen; we are t