The countess thought that this note was very cold and formal, and would be altogether conclusive; but, nevertheless, at about eleven o'clock that night there came another messenger from Hap House with another letter, saying that Owen would be at Desmond Court at two o'clock on the following day.

"He is very foolish; that is all I can say," said the countess.

All that night and all the next morning poor Clara was very wretched.

That she had been right to give up a suitor who lived such a life as Owen Fitzgerald lived she could not doubt. But, nevertheless, was she true in giving him up? Had she made any stipulation as to his life when she accepted his love? If he called her false, as doubtless he would call her, how would she defend herself? Had she any defence to offer? It was not only that she had rejected him, a poor lover; but she had accepted a rich lover! What could she say to him when he upbraided her for such sordid conduct?

And then as to her whistling him down the wind. Did she wish to do that? In what state did her heart stand towards him? Might it not be that, let her be ever so much on her guard, she would show him some tenderness,--tenderness which would be treason to her present affianced suitor? Oh, why had her mother desired her to go through such an interview as this!

When two o'clock came Clara was in the drawing-room. She had said nothing to her mother as to the manner in which this meeting should take place. But then at first she had had an idea that Lady Desmond would be present. But as the time came near Clara was still alone.

When her watch told her that it was already two, she was still by herself; and when the old servant, opening the door, announced that Mr. Fitzgerald was there, she was still unsupported by the presence of any companion. It was very surprising that on such an occasion her mother should have kept herself away.

She had not seen Owen Fitzgerald since that day when they had walked together under the elm-trees, and it can hardly be said that she saw him now. She had a feeling that she had injured him--had deceived, and in a manner betrayed him; and that feeling became so powerful with her that she hardly dared to look him in the face.

He, when he entered the room, walked straight up to her, and offered her his hand. He, too, looked round the room to see whether Lady Desmond was there, and not finding her, was surprised. He had hardly hoped that such an opportunity would be allowed to him for declaring the strength of his pa.s.sion.

She got up, and taking his hand, muttered something; it certainly did not matter what, for it was inaudible; but such as the words were, they were the first spoken between them.

"Lady Clara," he began; and then stopped himself; and, considering, recommenced--"Clara, a report has reached my ears which I will believe from no lips but your own."

She now sat down on a sofa, and pointed to a chair for him, but he remained standing, and did so during the whole interview; or rather, walking; for when he became energetic and impetuous, he moved about from place to place in the room, as though incapable of fixing himself in one position.

Clara was ignorant whether or no it behoved her to rebuke him for calling her simply by her Christian name. She thought that she ought to do so, but she did not do it.

"I have been told," he continued, "that you have engaged yourself to marry Herbert Fitzgerald; and I have now come to hear a contradiction of this from yourself."

"But, Mr. Fitzgerald, it is true."

"It is true that Herbert Fitzgerald is your accepted lover?"

"Yes," she said, looking down upon the ground, and blushing deeply as she said it.

There was a pause of a few moments, during which she felt that the full fire of his glance was fixed upon her, and then he spoke.

"You may well be ashamed to confess it," he said; "you may well feel that you dare not look me in the face as you p.r.o.nounce the words. I would have believed it, Clara, from no other mouth than your own."

It appeared to Clara herself now as though she were greatly a culprit. She had not a word to say in her own defence. All those arguments as to Owen's ill course of life were forgotten; and she could only remember that she had acknowledged that she loved him, and that she was now acknowledging that she loved another.

But now Owen had made his accusation; and as it was not answered, he hardly knew how to proceed. He walked about the room, endeavouring to think what he had better say next.

"I know this, Clara; it is your mother's doing, and not your own. You could not bring yourself to be false, unless by her instigation."

"No," said she; "you are wrong there. It is not my mother's doing: what I have done, I have done myself."

"Is it not true," he asked, "that your word was pledged to me? Had you not promised me that you would be my wife?"

"I was very young," she said, falling back upon the only excuse which occurred to her at the moment as being possible to be used without incriminating him.

"Young! Is not that your mother's teaching? Why, those were her very words when she came to me at my house. I did not know that youth was any excuse for falsehood."

"But it may be an excuse for folly," said Clara.

"Folly! what folly? The folly of loving a poor suitor; the folly of being willing to marry a man who has not a large estate! Clara, I did not think that you could have learned so much in so short a time."

All this was very hard upon her. She felt that it was hard, for she knew that he had done that which ent.i.tled her to regard her pledge to him as at an end; but the circ.u.mstances were such that she could not excuse herself.

"Am I to understand," said Owen Fitzgerald, "that all that has pa.s.sed between us is to go for nothing? that such promises as we have made to each other are to be of no account? To me they are sacred pledges, from which I would not escape even if I could."

As he then paused for a reply, she was obliged to say something.

"I hope you have not come here to upbraid me, Mr. Fitzgerald."

"Clara," he continued, "I have pa.s.sed the last year with perfect reliance upon your faith. I need hardly tell you that it has not been pa.s.sed happily, for it has been pa.s.sed without seeing you. But though you have been absent from me, I have never doubted you. I have known that it was necessary that we should wait--wait perhaps till years should make you mistress of your own actions: but nevertheless I was not unhappy, for I was sure of your love."

Now it was undoubtedly the case that Fitzgerald was treating her unfairly; and though she had not her wits enough about her to ascertain this by process of argument, nevertheless the idea did come home to her. It was true that she had promised her love to this man, as far as such promise could be conveyed by one word of a.s.sent; but it was true also that she had been almost a child when she p.r.o.nounced that word, and that things which had since occurred had ent.i.tled her to annul any amount of contract to which she might have been supposed to bind herself by that one word. She bethought herself, therefore, that as she was so hard pressed she was forced to defend herself.

"I was very young then, Mr. Fitzgerald, and hardly knew what I was saying: afterwards, when mamma spoke to me, I felt that I was bound to obey her."

"What, to obey her by forgetting me?"

"No; I have never forgotten you, and never shall. I remember too well your kindness to my brother; your kindness to us all."

"Psha! you know I do not speak of that. Are you bound to obey your mother by forgetting that you have loved me?"

She paused a moment before she answered him, looking now full before her,--hardly yet bold enough to look him in the face.

"No," she said; "I have not forgotten that I loved you. I shall never forget it. Child as I was, it shall never be forgotten. But I cannot love you now--not in the manner you would have me."

"And why not, Lady Clara? Why is love to cease on your part--to be thrown aside so easily by you, while with me it remains so stern a fact, and so deep a necessity? Is that just? When the bargain has once been made, should it not be equally binding on us both?"

"I do not think you are fair to me, Mr. Fitzgerald," she said; and some spirit was now rising in her bosom.

"Not fair to you? Do you say that I am unfair to you? Speak but one word to say that the troth which you pledged me a year since shall still remain unbroken, and I will at once leave you till you yourself shall name the time when my suit may be renewed."

"You know that I cannot do that."

"And why not? I know that you ought to do it."

"No, Mr. Fitzgerald, I ought not. I am now engaged to your cousin, with the consent of mamma and of his friends. I can say nothing to you now which I cannot repeat to him; nor can I say anything which shall oppose his wishes."

"He is then so much more to you now than I am?"

"He is everything to me now."

"That is all the reply I am to get then! You acknowledge your falseness, and throw me off without vouchsafing me any answer beyond this."

"What would you have me say? I did do that which was wrong and foolish, when--when we were walking there on the avenue. I did give a promise which I cannot now keep. It was all so hurried that I hardly remember what I said. But of this I am sure, that if I have caused you unhappiness, I am very sorry to have done so. I cannot alter it all now; I cannot unsay what I said then; nor can I offer you that which I have now absolutely given to another."