nd Court all his life, so long as he could
have Owen Fitzgerald near him to make life palatable.

That night he spoke to no one on the subject, at least to no one of
his own accord. When they were alone his mother asked him where he
had been; and when she learned that he had been at Hap House, she
questioned him much as to what had passed between him and Owen; but
he would tell her nothing, merely saying that Owen had spoken of
Clara with his usual ecstasy of love, but declining to go into the
subject at any length. The countess, however, gathered from him
that he and Owen were on kindly terms together, and so far she felt
satisfied.

On the following morning he made up his mind "to have it out," as
he called it, with Clara; but when the hour came his courage failed
him: it was a difficult task--that which he was now to undertake--of
explaining to her his wish that she should go back to her old lover,
not because he was no longer poor, but, as it were in spite of his
poverty, and as a reward to him for consenting to remain poor. As
he had thought about it while riding home, it had seemed feasible
enough. He would tell her how nobly Owen was going to behave to
Herbert, and would put it to her whether, as he intended willingly
to abandon the estate, he ought not to be put into possession of the
wife. There was a romantic justice about this which he thought would
touch Clara's heart. But on the following morning when he came to
think what words he would use for making his little proposition, the
picture did not seem to him to be so beautiful. If Clara really loved
Herbert--and she had declared that she did twenty times over--it
would be absurd to expect her to give him up merely because he was
not a ruined man. But then, which did she love? His mother declared
that she loved Owen. "That's the real question," said the earl to
himself, as on the second morning he made up his mind that he would
"have it out" with Clara without any further delay. He must be true
to Owen; that was his first great duty at the present moment.

"Clara, I want to talk to you," he said, breaking suddenly into the
room where she usually sat alone o' mornings. "I was at Hap House the
day before yesterday with Owen Fitzgerald, and to tell you the truth
at once, we were talking about you the whole time we were there. And
now what I want is, that something should be settled, so that we may
all understand one another."

These words he spoke to her qu