Desmond.

But sadder thoughts did come when that figure had wholly disappeared.
Her eye, looking out into the darkness, could not but see another
figure on which it had often in past times delighted almost
unconsciously to dwell. There, walking on that very road, another
lover, another Fitzgerald, had sworn that he loved her; and had truly
sworn so, as she well knew. She had never doubted his truth to her,
and did not doubt it now;--and yet she had given herself away to
another.

And in many things he too, that other lover, had been noble and
gracious, and fit for a woman to love. In person he exceeded all
that she had ever seen or dreamed of; and why should we think that
personal excellence is to count for nothing in female judgment, when
in that of men it ranks so immeasurably above all other excellences?
His bearing, too, was chivalrous and bold, his language full of
poetry, and his manner of loving eager, impetuous, and of a kin to
worship. Then, too, he was now in misfortune; and when has that
failed to soften even the softness of a woman's heart?

It was impossible that she should not make comparisons, comparisons
that were so distasteful to her; impossible, also, that she should
not accuse herself of some falseness to that first lover. The time to
us, my friends, seems short enough since she was walking there, and
listening with childish delight to Owen's protestations of love. It
was but little more than one year since: but to her those months had
been very long. And, reader, if thou hast arrived at any period of
life which enables thee to count thy past years by lustrums; if thou
art at a time of life, past thirty we will say, hast thou not found
that thy years, which are now short enough, were long in those bygone
days?

Those fourteen months were to her the space almost of a second life,
as she now looked back upon them. When those earlier vows were made,
what had she cared for prudence, for the world's esteem, or an
alliance that might be becoming to her? That Owen Fitzgerald was a
gentleman of high blood and ancient family, so much she had cared to
know; for the rest, she had only cared to feel this, that her heart
beat high with pleasure when he was with her.

Did her heart beat as high now, when his cousin was beside her? No;
she felt that it did not. And sometimes she felt, or feared to feel,
that it might beat high again when she should again see the lover
whom her judgment had rejected.

Her j