self to believe that she did not love him still. Her mother
had been too powerful for her, and she had weakly yielded; but as to
her heart--Owen could not bring himself to believe that that was gone
from him.

They two would make a bargain,--he and his cousin. Honour and renown,
and the money and the title would be everything to his cousin.
Herbert had been brought up to expect these things, and all the world
around him had expected them for him. It would be terrible to him
to find himself robbed of them. But the loss of Clara Desmond was
equally terrible to Owen Fitzgerald. He allowed his heart to fill
itself with a romantic sense of honour, teaching him that it behoved
him as a man not to give up his love. Without her he would live
disgraced in his own estimation; but who would not think the better
of him for refraining from the possession of those Castle Richmond
acres? Yes; he would make a bargain with Herbert. Who was there in
the world to deny his right to do so?

As he sat revolving these things in his mind, he suddenly heard a
rushing sound, as of many horsemen down the avenue, and going to the
window, he saw two or three leading men of the hunt, accompanied by
the gray-haired old huntsman; and through and about and under the
horsemen were the dogs, running in and out of the laurels which
skirted the road, with their noses down, giving every now and then
short yelps as they caught up the uncertain scent from the leaves on
the ground, and hurried on upon the trail of their game.

"Yo ho! to him, Messenger; hark to him, Maybird; good bitch,
Merrylass. He's down here, gen'lemen, and he'll never get away
alive. He came to a bad place when he looked out for going to ground
anywhere near Mr. Owen."

And then there came, fast trotting down through the other horsemen,
making his way eagerly to the front, a stout heavy man, with a florid
handsome face and eager eye. He might be some fifty years of age, but
no lad there of three-and-twenty was so anxious and impetuous as he.
He was riding a large-boned, fast-trotting bay horse, that pressed on
as eagerly as his rider. As he hurried forward all made way for him,
till he was close to the shrubs in the front of the house.

"Bless my soul, gentlemen," he said, in an angry voice, "how, in the
name of all that's good, are hounds to hunt if you press them down
the road in that way? By heavens, Barry, you are enough to drive
a man wild. Yoicks, Merrylass! there it is, Pat;"