him to-morrow
after breakfast. Is it probable that I shall find him at home?"

"Yes, if you are there before ten. The hounds meet to-morrow at
Cecilstown, within three miles of him, and he will not leave home
till near eleven. But it is possible that he may have a house full of
men with him."

"At any rate I will try. On such an occasion as this he may surely
let his friends go to the hunt without him."

And then between nine and ten this interview came to an end. "Mr.
Fitzgerald," said Mr. Prendergast, as he pressed Herbert's hand,
"you have borne all this as a man should do. No loss of fortune can
ruin one who is so well able to endure misfortune." But in this Mr.
Prendergast was perhaps mistaken. His knowledge of human nature had
not carried him sufficiently far. A man's courage under calamity
is only tested when he is left in solitude. The meanest among us
can bear up while strange eyes are looking at us. And then Mr.
Prendergast went away, and he was alone.

It had been his habit during the whole of this period of his father's
illness to go to Sir Thomas at or before bedtime. These visits
had usually been made to the study, the room in which he was now
standing; but when his father had gone to his bedroom at an earlier
hour, Herbert had always seen him there. Was he to go to him now--now
that he had heard all this? And if so, how was he to bear himself
there, in his father's presence? He stood still, thinking of this,
till the hand of the clock showed him that it was past ten, and then
it struck him that his father might be waiting for him. It would not
do for him now, at such a moment, to appear wanting in that attention
which he had always shown. He was still his father's son, though he
had lost the right to bear his father's name. He was nameless now, a
man utterly without respect or standing-place in the world, a being
whom the law ignored except as the possessor of a mere life; such was
he now, instead of one whose rights and privileges, whose property
and rank all the statutes of the realm and customs of his country
delighted to honour and protect. This he repeated to himself over
and over again. It was to such a pass as this, to this bitter
disappointment that his father had brought him. But yet it should not
be said of him that he had begun to neglect his father as soon as he
had heard the story.

So with a weary step he walked up stairs, and found Sir Thomas in
bed, with his mother sitting by the be