very possibly, had
not a serious thought upon the matter, but _she_ had actually fallen in
love! I suppose you must have played hero, at that shipwreck, in some
very chivalrous fashion; however it was, my Lady had lost her heart,
precisely at the same time that his Lordship had lost his head,--leaving
you, I conjecture, in a very awkward dilemma. Seeing there was no time
to lose, and resolving to sacrifice myself to save her, I made one more
effort. I'll not weary you with a narrative of my eloquence, nor repeat
any of the ten-thousand-and-one reasons I gave for her shunning your
society, and, if need were, leaving your house. The whole ended as I
ought to have foreseen it would,--in an open breach between us; she
candidly avowing that she would be my deadly enemy through life, and
even procure a personal rupture between you and me, if pushed to it,
by my 'impertinent importunity,' so she called it. I own to you I
was completely dumfounded by this. I knew that she had courage
for anything, and that, if she did care for a man, there would be a
recklessness in the course she would follow that would defy guidance or
direction, and so I abstained from any further interference; and, as you
may have remarked yourself, I actually estranged myself from you."

"I did remark that," said Cashel, gravely.

"Well, to-night, when by mere accident Kilgoff and I had sauntered into
the gallery and came upon you in the boudoir, I own frankly I was not
sorry for it; unpleasant as such scenes are, they are better--a hundred
thousand times better--than the sad consequences they anticipate; and
even should anything take place personally, I 'd rather see you stand
Kilgoff's fire at 'twelve paces,' than be exposed to the flash of my
Lady's eye at 'one.'"

"Your friendly zeal," said Cashel, with a very peculiar emphasis on the
words, "would seem to have got the upper hand of your habitually sharp
perception; there was nothing to fear in any part of my intimacy
with Lady Kilgoff. I have been but too short a time conversant with
fashionable life to forget more vulgar habits, and, among them, that
which forbids a man to pay his addresses to the wife of another. I need
not vindicate her Ladyship; that she has taken a warm, I shame not to
say an affectionate, interest in my fortunes, may have been imprudent I
know not what your code admits of or rejects, but her kindness demands
all my gratitude, and, if need be, the defence that a man of honor
s