inued, with
some little qualm of conscience, "if you will consent to be his
wife."

"Patrick!"

"Listen, now listen. He thinks, and, Clara, by the heavens above me!
I think also that you did love him better than you ever loved Herbert
Fitzgerald." Clara as she heard these words blushed ruby red up
to her very hair, but she said never a word. "And I think, and he
thinks, that you are bound now to Herbert by his misfortunes--that
you feel that you cannot desert him because he has fallen so low. By
George, Clara, I am proud of you for sticking to him through thick
and thin, now that he is down! But the matter will be very difficult
if you have the means of giving back to him all that he has lost, as
you have. Owen will be poor, but he is a prince among men. By heaven,
Clara, if you will only say that he is your choice, Herbert shall
have back all Castle Richmond! and I--I shall never marry, and you
may give to the man that I love as my brother all that there is left
to us of Desmond."

There was something grand about the lad's eager tone of voice as he
made his wild proposal, and something grand also about his heart. He
meant what he said, foolish as he was either to mean or to say it.
Clara burst into tears, and threw herself into his arms. "You don't
understand," she said, through her sobs, "my own, own brother; you do
not understand."

"But, by Jove! I think I do understand. As sure as you are a living
girl he will give back Castle Richmond to Herbert Fitzgerald."

She recovered herself, and leaving her brother's arms, walked away to
the window, and from thence looked down to that path beneath the elms
which was the spot in the world which she thought of the oftenest;
but as she gazed, there was no lack of loyalty in her heart to the
man to whom she was betrothed. It seemed to her as though those
childish days had been in another life; as though Owen had been her
lover in another world,--a sweet, childish, innocent, happy world
which she remembered well, but which was now dissevered from her by
an impassable gulf. She thought of his few words of love,--so few
that she remembered every word that he had then spoken, and thought
of them with a singular mixture of pain and pleasure. And now she
heard of his noble self-denial with a thrill which was in no degree
enhanced by the fact that she, or even Herbert, was to be the gainer
by it. She rejoiced at his nobility, merely because it was a joy to
her to know that he