reputation does not often hurt a young man's feelings. But the other
rumour did wound him. What! he sell himself to a widowed countess
almost old enough to be his mother; or bestow himself rather,--for
what was there in return that could be reckoned as a price? At any
rate, he had given no one cause to utter such falsehood, such calumny
as that. No; it certainly was not probable that he should marry the
countess.

But this set him to ask himself whether it might or might not be
possible that he should marry some one else. Might it not be well
for him if he could find a younger bride at Desmond Court? Not for
nothing had he ridden over there through those bleak mountains;
not for nothing, nor yet solely with the view of tying flies for
the young earl's summer fishing, or preparing the new nag for
his winter's hunting. Those large bright eyes had asked him many
questions. Would it not be well that he should answer them?

For many months of that year Clara Desmond had hardly spoken to
him. Then, in the summer evening, as he and her brother would lie
sprawling together on the banks of the little Desmond river, while
the lad was talking of his fish, and his school, and his cricket
club, she would stand by and listen, and so gradually she learned to
speak.

And the mother also would sometimes be there; or else she would
welcome Fitzgerald in to tea, and let him stay there talking as
though they were all at home, till he would have to make a midnight
ride of it before he reached Hap House. It seemed that no fear as to
her daughter had ever crossed the mother's mind; that no idea had
ever come upon her that her favoured visitor might learn to love the
young girl with whom he was allowed to associate on so intimate a
footing. Once or twice he had caught himself calling her Clara, and
had done so even before her mother; but no notice had been taken of
it. In truth, Lady Desmond did not know her daughter, for the mother
took her absolutely to be a child, when in fact she was a child no
longer.

"You take Clara round by the bridge," said the earl to his friend one
August evening, as they were standing together on the banks of the
river, about a quarter of a mile distant from the sombre old pile in
which the family lived. "You take Clara round by the bridge, and I
will get over the stepping-stones." And so the lad, with his rod in
his hand, began to descend the steep bank.

"I can get over the stepping-stones, too, Patrick,