ll there would be on his tenderness of heart, and how
little scope for any tenderness of purpose.

And was it absolutely necessary that that blow should fall in all its
severity? He asked himself this question over and over again, and
always had to acknowledge that it was necessary. There could be no
possible mitigation. The son must be told that he was no son--no son
in the eye of the law; the wife must be told that she was no wife,
and the distant relative must be made acquainted with his golden
prospects. The position of Herbert and Clara, and of their promised
marriage, had been explained to him,--and all that too must be
shivered into fragments. How was it possible that the penniless
daughter of an earl should give herself in marriage to a youth,
who was not only penniless also, but illegitimate and without a
profession? Look at it in which way he would, it was all misery and
ruin, and it had fallen upon him to pronounce the doom!

He could not himself believe that there was any doubt as to the
general truth of Mollett's statement. He would of course inquire. He
would hear what the man had to say and see what he had to adduce.
He would also examine that old servant, and, if necessary--and if
possible also--he would induce Lady Fitzgerald to see the man. But he
did feel convinced that on this point there was no doubt. And then
he lifted up his hands in astonishment at the folly which had been
committed by a marriage under such circumstances--as wise men will
do in the decline of years, when young people in the heyday of youth
have not been wise. "If they had waited for a term of years," he
said, "and if he then had not presented himself!" A term of years,
such as Jacob served for Rachel, seems so light an affair to old
bachelors looking back at the loves of their young friends.

And so he walked about in the dusk by no means a happy man, nor in
any way satisfied with the work which was still before him. How was
he to face Lady Fitzgerald, or tell her of her fate? In what words
must he describe to Herbert Fitzgerald the position which in future
he must fill? The past had been dreadful to him, and the future would
be no less so, in spite of his character as a hard, stern man.

When he returned to the house he met young Fitzgerald in the hall.
"Have you been to your father?" he asked immediately. Herbert, in a
low voice, and with a saddened face, said that he had just come from
his father's room; but Mr. Prendergas