arranged, and I suppose Mr.
Prendergast had better do it.

I am, dear sir,
Your faithful servant,

OWEN FITZGERALD of Hap House.

And with those four or five lines he thought it would be practicable
for him to close the whole affair.

This happened on the day of Herbert's departure, and on the day
preceding Lord Desmond's visit to Hap House; so that on the occasion
of that visit, Owen looked upon the deed as fully done. He had put
it quite beyond his own power to recede now, even had he so wished.
And then came the tidings to him,--true tidings as he thought,--that
Clara was still within his reach if only he were master of Castle
Richmond. That this view of his position did for a moment shake him I
will not deny; but it was only for a moment: and then it was that he
had looked up at Clara's brother, and bade him go back to his mother
and sister, and tell them that Owen of Hap House was Owen of Hap
House still;--that and nothing more. Clara Desmond might be bought at
a price which would be too costly even for such a prize as her. It
was well for him that he so resolved, for at no price could she have
been bought.

Mr. Somers, when he received that letter, was much inclined to doubt
whether or no it might not be well to take Owen at his word. After
all, what just right had he to the estate? According to the eternal
and unalterable laws of right and wrong ought it not to belong to
Herbert Fitzgerald? Mr. Somers allowed his wish on this occasion
to be father to many thoughts much at variance from that line of
thinking which was customary to him as a man of business. In his
ordinary moods, law with him was law, and a legal claim a legal
claim. Had he been all his life agent to the Hap House property
instead of to that of Castle Richmond, a thought so romantic would
never have entered his head. He would have scouted a man as nearly a
maniac who should suggest to him that his client ought to surrender
an undoubted inheritance of twelve thousand a year on a point of
feeling. He would have rejected it as a proposed crime, and talked
much of the indefeasible rights of the coming heirs of the new heir.
He would have been as firm as a rock, and as trenchant as a sword in
defence of his patron's claims. But now, having in his hands that
short, pithy letter from Owen Fitzgerald, he could not but look at
the matter in a more Christian light. After all was not justice,
immutable justice, better than law? And woul