.
Indeed, from his manner, I thought he wished it to be generally made
known. I presumed, therefore, that it had been mutually agreed between
you, that the event was not to come off--that the match was not to
be run; and, with my peculiar views, you know, on the subject of
matrimony, I thought it a fair point for congratulation. If Lord
Kilcullen had misled me, I heartily beg to apologise; and at the same
time, by giving you my authority, to show you that I could not intend
anything impertinent. If it suits you, you are quite at liberty to tell
Lord Kilcullen all I have told you; and, if you wish me to contradict
the report, which I must own I have spread, I will do so."

Frank felt that he could not be angry with Mat Tierney; he therefore
thanked him for his open explanation, and, merely muttering something
about private affairs not being worthy of public interest, rode off
towards Handicap Lodge.

It appeared very plain to him that the Grey Abbey family must have
discarded him--that Fanny Wyndham, Lord and Lady Cashel, and the whole
set, must have made up their minds to drop him altogether; otherwise,
one of the family would not have openly declared the match at an end.
And yet he was at a loss to conceive how they could have done so--how
even Lord Cashel could have reconciled it to himself to do so, without
the common-place courtesy of writing to him on the subject. And then,
when he thought of her, "his own Fanny," as he had so often called her,
he was still more bewildered: she, with whom he had sat for so many
sweet hours talking of the impossibility of their ever forgetting,
deserting, or even slighting each other; she, who had been so entirely
devoted to him--so much more than engaged to him--could she have lent
her name to such a heartless mode of breaking her faith?

"If I had merely proposed for her through her guardian," thought Frank,
to himself--"if I had got Lord Cashel to make the engagement, as many
men do, I should not be surprised; but after all that has passed
between us--after all her vows, and all her--" and then Lord Ballindine
struck his horse with his heel, and made a cut at the air with his
whip, as he remembered certain passages more binding even than
promises, warmer even than vows, which seemed to make him as miserable
now as they had made him happy at the time of their occurrence. "I
would not believe it," he continued, meditating, "if twenty Kilcullens
said it, or if fifty Mat Tierneys