own folly in having allowed you so to
address her. But for you, Mr. Fitzgerald, under all the circumstances
I can make no excuse for you. Is yours, do you think, the sort of
house to which a young girl should be brought as a bride? Is your
life, are your companions of that kind which could most profit her? I
am sorry that you drive me to remind you of these things."

His face became very dark, and his brow stern as his sins were thus
cast into his teeth.

"And from what you know of me, Lady Desmond," he said,--and as he
spoke he assumed a dignity of demeanour which made her more inclined
to love him than ever she had been before,--"do you think that I
should be the man to introduce a young wife to such companions as
those to whom you allude? Do you not know, are you not sure in your
own heart, that my marriage with your daughter would instantly put an
end to all that?"

"Whatever may be my own thoughts, and they are not likely to be
unfavourable to you--for Patrick's sake, I mean; but whatever may
be my own thoughts, I will not subject my daughter to such a risk.
And, Mr. Fitzgerald, you must allow me to say, that your income
is altogether insufficient for her wants and your own. She has no
fortune--"

"I want none with her."

"And--but I will not argue the matter with you. I did not come to
argue it, but to tell you, with as little offence as may be possible,
that such a marriage is absolutely impossible. My daughter herself
has already abandoned all thoughts of it."

"Her thoughts then must be wonderfully under her own control. Much
more so than mine are."

"Lord Desmond, you may be sure, will not hear of it."

"Lord Desmond cannot at present be less of a child than his sister."

"I don't know that, Mr. Fitzgerald."

"At any rate, Lady Desmond, I will not put my happiness, nor as far
as I am concerned in it, his sister's happiness, at his disposal.
When I told her that I loved her, I did not speak, as you seem to
think, from an impulse of the moment. I spoke because I loved her;
and as I love her, I shall of course try to win her. Nothing can
absolve me from my engagement to her but her marriage with another
person."

The countess had once or twice made small efforts to come to terms of
peace with him; or rather to a truce, under which there might still
be some friendship between them,--accompanied, however, by a positive
condition that Clara should be omitted from any participation in it.
She would h