im than it would do, were he altogether well."

"And your mother, Herbert?"

"Oh, yes; she also is to be pitied. Sometimes, for moments, she seems
to dread some terrible misfortune; but I believe that in her calm
judgment she thinks that our worst calamity is the state of my
father's health."

Neither in discussing the matter with his mother or Clara, nor in
thinking it over when alone, did it ever occur to Herbert that he
himself might be individually subject to the misfortune over which
his father brooded. Sir Thomas had spoken piteously to him, and
called him poor, and had seemed to grieve over what might happen to
him; but this had been taken by the son as a part of his father's
malady.

Everything around him was now melancholy, and therefore these terms
had not seemed to have any special force of their own. He did not
think it necessary to warn Clara that bad days might be in store for
both of them, or to caution her that their path of love might yet be
made rough.

"And whom do you think I met, just now, on horseback?" he asked, as
soon as this question of her visit had been decided.

"Mr. Owen Fitzgerald, probably," said Clara. "He went from hence
about an hour since."

"Owen Fitzgerald here!" he repeated, as though the tidings of such a
visit having been made were not exactly pleasant to him. "I thought
that Lady Desmond did not even see him now."

"His visit was to me, Herbert, and I will explain it to you. I was
just going to tell you when you first came in, only you began about
Castle Richmond."

"And have you seen him?"

"Oh yes, I saw him. Mamma thought it best. Yesterday he wrote a note
to me which I will show you." And then she gave him such an account
of the interview as was possible to her, making it, at any rate,
intelligible to him that Owen had come thither to claim her for
himself, having heard the rumour of her engagement to his cousin.

"It was inexcusable on his part--unpardonable!" said Herbert,
speaking with an angry spot on his face, and with more energy than
was usual with him.

"Was it? why?" said Clara, innocently. She felt unconsciously that it
was painful to her to hear Owen ill spoken of by her lover, and that
she would fain excuse him if she could.

"Why, dearest? Think what motives he could have had; what other
object than to place you in a painful position, and to cause trouble
and vexation to us all. Did he not know that we were engaged?"

"Oh yes; he knew that;--