"Lady Grace!" he exclaimed, with surprise, as her voice fell on his ear.

"Grace Fitzgerald, in body and spirit," said she, with her usual gayety.

"Can the highborn heiress of Earl Fitzgerald be served by one so humble?" he asked, in a tone slightly tinged with his former gloomy humour.

She seemed to be at a loss, for a moment, how to reply, scarcely knowing in what way to interpret his words. At length she said, advancing frankly towards him,

"I have not come to command your services, Mark, but to beg of you a favour; to ask you to execute a mission of delicacy, that can be intrusted to no one so well as yourself."

The frank and kind manner in which she spoke, the graceful propriety with which she overstepped the barrier of _caste_ that separated them, sensibly affected him. It was the first time he had been so addressed by those above him in birth and station; the first time his services had not been demanded as a right by those who needed them.

Her suavity and condescension of manner were perhaps prompted by the remembrance of the outrage he had received at Lester's hands, and by a knowledge of his intrepidity, and of his pride of spirit, which she knew to be chafed and goaded by the insults inseparable from his station. She therefore generously wished to sooth and bind up his injured feelings.

She had, too, her own notions of what const.i.tutes true n.o.bility; and it is plain, from her conversation with Kate, that she was less governed by the social canons which regulate such things, and was infinitely more of a democrat than her haughty and beautiful cousin. That her heart had anything to do in the matter, though Mark was so handsome, so gentle, and so brave withal, cannot be supposed; inasmuch as the little G.o.d seldom ensconces himself behind a peajacket to take aim at a heart mailed beneath a silken spencer. But, then, Cupid is very blind, and, besides, is so given to odd whims, that but little calculation can be made as to the direction from which his shafts will fly.

"Command me, lady," he replied, with grateful emotion, as she concluded.

"Are you angry with Lord Robert?" she asked, falteringly.

"Can I forgive him?"

"But you will forgive him--for--for--the sake of--my cousin Kate!"

"If _she_ were to bid me kiss his hand, I would not refuse her," he exclaimed, with a sudden glow of animation.

Grace sighed, and was for a moment silent; for she plainly saw that her influence had but little weight in this quarter in comparison with her cousin's. She then took the locket from the folds of her cloak, and said, in a very slightly mortified tone,

"It is _her_ wish that you bear this token of her forgiveness to Lord Robert. You will see that it is tied with a braid of _her own hair_!"

(Was there not a spice of feminine pique in this last clause, lady?)

"Bear this from _her_ to _him_?" he inquired, in a voice trembling with emotion.

"Yes."

"Never!" replied he, with vehemence.

"Mark!" she said, in a tone of gentle reproof, placing her hand lightly upon his arm.

"Pardon me," he said, hastily, "but--but--" His voice choked for utterance. "Oh G.o.d! Lady Grace," he suddenly cried, with an outbreak of terrible and ungovernable emotion, "you know not what it is to be--to be--" Here his feelings were too strong to be controlled, and, turning his face from her, he gave way to a paroxysm of the wildest grief.

She stood by in silence! She appreciated fully his feelings, for she had overheard the soliloquy he gave utterance to before he had become aware of her presence. She knew what he was and what he aspired to be, and how deeply his degradation preyed upon him. She sympathized with him with her whole heart; and with her sympathy there entered into her breast another emotion, which in woman's heart is so nearly allied to love, namely, gentle pity! When she saw that the first strong tide of his feelings had in some degree subsided, in a voice so full of what she felt that it touched all the finer sensibilities of his nature, and seemed to breathe peace throughout his soul, stilling every billow of pa.s.sion, she said to him,

"Mark, I do pity you from my heart! I know you are not fitted by nature for the state to which you were born. But to the bold spirit and determined will there is a wide road open to distinction; and in it men, humble as yourself, have won honourable renown, in the splendour of which the mere accident of their birth has been lost. The same road to honour lies open before you!"

The vivid eloquence, the animation of voice, the spirited manner, and the lofty energy of look with which this was spoken, united with the depth and sincerity of her interest in him, which she disdained to disguise, language can inadequately express. Its effect on him was electrical. He sprang forward, knelt at her feet, seized her hand, and, in the fulness of his heart, pressed it gratefully to his lips. She withdrew it in confusion, and he instantly buried his face in his hands, overcome with the painful feeling of having offended. She was the first to speak.

"Mark, bear this packet to Lord Robert; deliver it into his own hand, and immediately leave him, so that you give him no opportunity of renewing his feud. In the morning, on the earl's return from Kinsale, come to the castle, and I will represent your case to him."

"Dear lady, I will leave this message for you at Castle More; but pardon me if I decline your offer to serve me!"

"Then cousin Kate shall make it," she said, good-humouredly.

"Forgive me, but it will be still more firmly declined."

Grace was puzzled; and half sportively, half sincerely, it entered her thoughts that she had played her hand well if already, as his words seemed to imply, she had found more favour in the young fisherman's eyes than her cousin. But, all at once, the thought flashed upon her mind that it was alone the pride of love that led him to refuse any favour at her cousin's hands.

"You mean," she said in revenge, smiling as she spoke, "that you dislike my cousin Kate so much that you will not receive any kindness at her hands."

"If such could be inferred from my words, I recall every letter of them," he said, with an earnestness that amused her.

"I will then speak for you to my uncle."

"Lady, you will think me very ungrateful," he replied, "but--"

"But you will take no favour from the father of Kate Bellamont. Really, my cousin is complimented."

He was embarra.s.sed by the light in which she seemed to take his words, and, in attempting to explain, involved himself still deeper.

"Do not be distressed; I perfectly understand you, Mark," she said, with a laugh that relieved him. "Will you be obliged to _me_?"

"Pardon me if I say no!" he answered, gratefully but firmly. "No, lady,"

he added, in a grateful tone of voice, yet sadly, "I must work out brighter fortunes for myself by my own energies."

"I admire your independence. But, if you should need my--I would say, the a.s.sistance of any one--will you remember Grace Fitzgerald?"

He did not reply; his heart was swelling, but he laid his hand upon his bosom with an eloquent gesture that conveyed more than words.

"Enough!" she said, touched with his impressive manner. "I shall ever be ready to do for you all that can advance you to name and rank; and for your own sake, for the sake of--" here she paused with embarra.s.sment, and then added, "those who take an interest in you, it becomes you to rise from this humble station, and win for yourself a name and station among men. Do not forget that the proudest names in England sprang from the lowest rank. My own maternal ancestor was a favourite groom of William the Conqueror, who, for his prowess in a certain battle, knighted and parcelled out to him an equal division of land with his own knightly companions in arms. Shall I not yet hear of _you_ with pride?"

she added, extending her hand to him with characteristic frankness.

"Lady," he said, with animation, "if ever a lowborn youth, who would rise above his adverse fortunes, had cause to go forward, have I. The memory of your words will shine like a star of hope to guide me through the future. G.o.d help me! Lady Grace, you shall never blush with shame for him in whose fate you this night have shown an interest," he continued, with emotion. "For your sake I will achieve whatever man can accomplish."

"And will you do nothing for my poor cousin's sake?" she asked, significantly, and in a tone of raillery, not able, even at such a time, to subdue altogether her natural temperament.

"There is little hope that one so humble is ever in her thoughts," he replied, doubting, yet half believing.

"Little hope, I fear, while Lester lives," she said, smiling. "But think not of her--think not of love now," continued she, with animation; "let honour be your idol, and woo fame alone as your bride. There are some--there is _one_, Mark, who would rather see you honoured and enn.o.bled by your own hand than--than--but no matter, I have already said too much. Kate will have good reason to suspect I had cause to come alone," she said, mentally, "if I linger here longer;" she then added aloud,

"Fly, Mark, with this message. If you would serve me, bear it safely; if you would do my cousin Kate a favour, bear it quickly; and, lastly, for your own sake, get into no quarrel."

They had insensibly walked along while speaking, and were now at the foot of the path by which she had descended to the beach.

Mark took the packet from her hand, and, as he did so, pressed it with an air of native gallantry blended with grat.i.tude, greatly to her not unpleasurable surprise and confusion, and then hastened at a rapid pace along the beach in the direction of Castle More. She followed him for a few moments with her eyes, and then, sighing unconsciously (for it is in vain longer to disguise the interest she felt in the interesting fisher's lad), ascended the steep path and safely gained the castle, where, still at her lattice waiting her return, she found her cousin, to whom forthwith she communicated her success.

With a swift tread Mark traversed the curving sh.o.r.e till he had left a full league between him and the spot where he had separated from Grace Fitzgerald. Then striking into a path that led inland, he followed it with undiminished speed, and with a light and confident step, that showed his familiarity with every intricate winding of his moonlit way.

How often he pressed to his adoring lips the locket of hair that secured the billet; how often he paused to read over and over again, by the light of the moon, the delicate characters traced by the pencil her fingers had guided, let each one that has loved enumerate for himself.

As he went along, he could not help revolving in his mind the manner of Grace Fitzgerald, and asking himself a hundred times if she could mean anything; and when it could not be concealed from his penetrating mind that she did mean something, or affected to do so--the wish rose to his lips that Kate Bellamont had been in her place. Yet the very next moment, so contradictory is love, he congratulated himself that she was not, feeling that he should never have had the courage to meet her face to face alone, as he had met her cousin. Love surely endows his votaries with a singular union of boldness and timidity! Your lover is either an arrant coward or a lion, and sometimes he is both in one, as he happens to be in or out of his mistress's presence.