g playful.

"Lady Clara is nervous and hysterical. The excitement of the ball has
perhaps been too much for her. I think, Lady Desmond, if you were to
take her in with you it would be well."

Lady Desmond looked up at him; and he then saw, for the first time,
that she could if she pleased look very stern. Hitherto her face had
always worn smiles, had at any rate always been pleasing when he had
seen it. He had never been intimate with her, never intimate enough
to care what her face was like, till that day when he had carried her
son up from the hall door to his room. Then her countenance had been
all anxiety for her darling; and afterwards it had been all sweetness
for her darling's friend. From that day to this present one, Lady
Desmond had ever given him her sweetest smiles.

But Fitzgerald was not a man to be cowed by any woman's looks. He met
hers by a full, front face in return. He did not allow his eye for a
moment to fall before hers. And yet he did not look at her haughtily,
or with defiance, but with an aspect which showed that he was ashamed
of nothing that he had done,--whether he had done anything that he
ought to be ashamed of or no.

"Clara," said the countess, in a voice which fell with awful severity
on the poor girl's ears, "you had better return to the house with
me."

"Yes, mamma."

"And shall I wait on you to-morrow, Lady Desmond?" said Fitzgerald,
in a tone which seemed to the countess to be, in the present state of
affairs, almost impertinent. The man had certainly been misbehaving
himself; and yet there was not about him the slightest symptom of
shame.

"Yes; no," said the countess. "That is, I will write a note to you if
it be necessary. Good morning."

"Good-bye, Lady Desmond," said Owen. And as he took off his hat with
his left hand, he put out his right to shake hands with her, as was
customary with him. Lady Desmond was at first inclined to refuse the
courtesy; but she either thought better of such intention, or else
she had not courage to maintain it; for at parting she did give him
her hand.

"Good-bye, Lady Clara;" and he also shook hands with her, and it need
hardly be said that there was a lover's pressure in the grasp.

"Good-bye," said Clara, through her tears, in the saddest, soberest
tone. He was going away, happy, light hearted, with nothing to
trouble him. But she had to encounter that fearful task of telling
her own crime. She had to depart with her mother;--her mot