own interests."

"I should have done nothing of the kind," said Owen.

"Ah, but, my dear young friend, in such a case it would have been
your duty to do so."

"Then I should have neglected my duty. And do you tell Herbert this
from me, that let the truth be what it may, I shall never interrupt
him in his title or his property. It is not there that I shall look
either for justice or revenge. He will understand what I mean."

But Mr. Prendergast did not, by any means; nor did he enter into the
tone of Owen Fitzgerald's mind. They were both just men, but just in
an essentially different manner. The justice of Mr. Prendergast had
come of thought and education. As a young man, when entering on his
profession, he was probably less just than he was now. He had thought
about matters of law and equity, till thought had shown to him the
beauty of equity as it should be practised,--often by the aid of law,
and not unfrequently in spite of law. Such was the justice of Mr.
Prendergast. That of Owen Fitzgerald had come of impulse and nature,
and was the justice of a very young man rather than of a very wise
one. That title and property did not, as he felt, of justice belong
to him, but to his cousin. What difference could it make in the true
justice of things, whether or no that wretched man was still alive
whom all the world had regarded as dead? In justice he ought to be
dead. Now that this calamity of the man's life had fallen upon Sir
Thomas and Lady Fitzgerald and his cousin Herbert, it would not
be for him to aggravate it by seizing upon a heritage which might
possibly accrue to him under the letter of the world's law, but which
could not accrue to him under heaven's law. Such was the justice
of Owen Fitzgerald; and we may say this of it in its dispraise,
as comparing it with that other justice, that whereas that of Mr.
Prendergast would wear for ever, through ages and ages, that other
justice of Owen's would hardly have stood the pull of a ten years'
struggle. When children came to him, would he not have thought of
what might have been theirs by right; and then have thought of what
ought to be theirs by right; and so on?

But in speaking of justice, he had also spoken of revenge, and Mr.
Prendergast was altogether in the dark. What revenge? He did not know
that poor Owen had lost a love, and that Herbert had found it. In the
midst of all the confused thoughts which this astounding intelligence
had brought upon him, Owen