I have never been happy here. Happy! I have never been other than unhappy. I have been wretched. What would I not give to leave it also?"

"To you it cannot be intolerable as it will be to me. You have known so thoroughly where all my hopes were garnered, that I need not tell you why I must go from Hap House. I think that I have been wronged, but I do not desire that others should think so. And as for you and me, Lady Desmond, though we have been enemies, we have been friends also."

"Enemies!" said she, "I hope not." And she spoke so softly, so unlike her usual self, in the tones so suited to a loving, clinging woman, that though he did not understand it, he was startled at her tenderness. "I have never felt that you were my enemy, Mr.

Fitzgerald; and certainly I never was an enemy to you."

"Well; we were opposed to each other. I thought that you were robbing me of all I valued in life; and you, you thought--"

"I thought that Clara's happiness demanded rank and wealth and position. There; I tell you my sins fairly. You may say that I was mercenary if you will,--mercenary for her. I thought that I knew what would be needful for her. Can you be angry with a mother for that?"

"She had given me a promise! But never mind. It is all over now. I did not come to upbraid you, but to tell you that I now know how it must be, and that I am going."

"Had you won her, Owen," said the countess, looking intently into his face, "had you won her, she would not have made you happy."

"As to that it was for me to judge--for me and her. I thought it would, and was willing to peril all in the trial. And so was she--willing at one time. But never mind; it is useless to talk of that."

"Quite useless now."

"I did think--when it was as they said in my power to give him back his own,--I did think;--but no, it would have been mean to look for payment. It is all over, and I will say nothing further; not a word.

I am not a girl to harp on such a thing day after day, and to grow sick with love. I shall be better away. And therefore I am going, and I have now come to say good-bye, because we were friends in old days, Lady Desmond."

Friends in old days! They were old days to him, but they were no more than the other day to her. It was as yet hardly more than two years since she had first known him, and yet he looked on the acquaintance as one that had run out its time and required to be ended. She would so fain have been able to think that the beginning only had as yet come to them. But there he was, anxious to bid her adieu, and what was she to say to him?

"Yes, we were friends. You have been my only friend here I think. You will hardly believe with how much true friendship I have thought of you when the feud between us--if it was a feud--was at the strongest.

Owen Fitzgerald, I have loved you through it all."

Loved him? She was so handsome as she spoke, so womanly, so graceful, there was still about her so much of the charm of beauty, that he could hardly take the word when coming from her mouth as applicable to ordinary friendship. And yet he did so take it. They had all loved each other--as friends should love--and now that he was going she had chosen to say as much. He felt the blood tingle his cheek at the sound of her words; but he was not vain enough to take it in its usual sense. "Then we will part as friends," said he--tamely enough.

"Yes, we will part," she said. And as she spoke the blood mantled deep on her neck and cheek and forehead, and a spirit came out of her eye, such as never had shone there before in his presence. "Yes, we will part," and she took up his right hand, and held it closely, pressed between both her own. "And as we must part I will tell you all. Owen Fitzgerald, I have loved you with all my heart,--with all the love that a woman has to give. I have loved you, and have never loved any other. Stop, stop," for he was going to interrupt her. "You shall hear me now to the last,--and for the last time. I have loved you with such love--such love as you perhaps felt for her, but as she will never feel. But you shall not say, nay you shall not think that I have been selfish. I would have kept you from her when you were poor as you are now,--not because I loved you. No; you will never think that of me. And when I thought that you were rich, and the head of your family, I did all that I could to bring her back for you. Did I not, Owen?"

"Yes, I think you did," he muttered between his teeth, hardly knowing how to speak.

"Indeed, indeed I did so. Others may say that I was selfish for my child, but you shall not think that I was selfish for myself. I sent for Patrick, and bade him go to you. I strove as mothers do strive for their children. I taught myself,--I strove to teach myself to forget that I had loved you. I swore on my knees that I would love you only as my son,--as my dear, dear son. Nay, Owen, I did; on my knees before my G.o.d."

He turned away from her to rub the tears from his eyes, and in doing so he dragged his hand away from her. But she followed him, and again took it. "You will hear me to the end now," she said; "will you not?

you will not begrudge me that? And then came these other tidings, and all that scheme was dashed to the ground. It was better so, Owen; you would not have been happy with the property--"

"I should never have taken it."

"And she, she would have clung closer to him as a poor man than ever she had done when he was rich. She is her mother's daughter there.

And then--then-- But I need not tell you more. You will know it all now. If you had become rich, I would have ceased to love you; but I shall never cease now that you are again poor,--now that you are Owen of Hap House again, as you sent us word yourself that day."

And then she ceased, and bending down her head bathed his hand with her tears. Had any one asked him that morning, he would have said that it was impossible that the Countess of Desmond should weep.

And now the tears were streaming from her eyes as though she were a broken-hearted girl. And so she was. Her girlhood had been postponed and marred,--not destroyed and made away with, by the wrinkled earl with the gloating eyes.

She had said all now, and she stood there, still holding his hand in hers, but with her head turned from him. It was his turn to speak now, and how was he to answer her. I know how most men would have answered;--by the pressure of an arm, by a warm kiss, by a promise of love, and by a feeling that such love was possible. And then most men would have gone home, leaving the woman triumphant, and have repented bitterly as they sat moody over their own fires, with their wine-bottles before them. But it was not so with Owen Fitzgerald.

His heart was to him a reality. He had loved with all his power and strength, with all the vigour of his soul,--having chosen to love.

But he would not now be enticed by pity into a b.a.s.t.a.r.d feeling, which would die away when the tenderness of the moment was no longer present to his eye and touch. His love for Clara had been such that he could not even say that he loved another.

"Dear Lady Desmond," he began.

"Ah, Owen; we are to part now, part for ever," she said; "speak to me once in your life as though we were equal friends. Cannot you forget for one minute that I am Countess of Desmond?"

Mary, Countess of Desmond; such was her name and t.i.tle. But so little familiar had he been with the name by which he had never heard her called, that in his confusion he could not remember it. And had he done so, he could not have brought himself to use it. "Yes," he said; "we must part. It is impossible for me to remain here."

"Doubly impossible now," she replied, half reproaching him.

"Yes; doubly impossible now. Is it not better that the truth should be spoken?"

"Oh, yes. I have spoken it--too plainly."

"And so will I speak it plainly. We cannot control our own hearts, Lady Desmond. It is, as you say, doubly impossible now. All the love I have had to give she has had,--and has. Such being so, why should I stay here? or could you wish that I should do so?"

"I do not wish it." That was true enough. The wish would have been to wander away with him.

"I must go, and shall start at once. My very things are packed for my going. I will not be here to have the sound of their marriage bells jangling in my ears. I will not be pointed at as the man who has been duped on every side."

"Ah me, that I was a man too,--that I could go away and make for myself a life!"

"You have Desmond with you."

"No, no. He will go too; of course he will go. He will go, and I shall be utterly alone. What a fool I am,--what an a.s.s, that by this time I have not learned to bear it!"

"They will always be near you at Castle Richmond."

"Ah, Owen, how little you understand! Have we been friends while we lived under the same roof? And now that she is there, do you think that she will heed me? I tell you that you do not know her. She is excellent, good, devoted; but cold as ice. She will live among the poor, and grace his table; and he will have all that he wants. In twelve months, Owen, she would have turned your heart to a stone."

"It is that already I think," said he. "At any rate, it will be so to all others. Good-bye, Lady Desmond."

"Good-bye, Owen; and G.o.d bless you. My secret will be safe with you."

"Safe! yes, it will be safe." And then, as she put her cheek up to him, he kissed it and left her.

He had been very stern. She had laid bare to him her whole heart, and he had answered her love by never a word. He had made no reply in any shape,--given her no thanks for her heart's treasure. He had responded to her affection by no tenderness. He had not even said that this might have been so, had that other not have come to pa.s.s.

By no word had he alluded to her confession,--but had regarded her delusion as monstrous, a thing of which no word was to be spoken.

So at least said the countess to herself, sitting there all alone where he had left her. "He regards me as old and worn. In his eyes I am wrinkled and ugly." 'Twas thus that her thoughts expressed themselves; and then she walked across the room towards the mirror, but when there she could not look in it: she turned her back upon it without a glance, and returned to her seat by the window. What mattered it now? It was her doom to live there alone for the term of life with which it might still please G.o.d to afflict her.

And then looking out from the window her eyes fell upon Owen as he rode slowly down across the park. His horse was walking very slowly, and it seemed as though he himself were unconscious of the pace.

As long as he remained in sight she did not take her eyes from his figure, gazing at him painfully as he grew dimmer and more dim in the distance. Then at last he turned behind the bushes near the lodge, and she felt that she was all alone. It was the last that she ever saw of Owen Fitzgerald.

Unfortunate girl, marred in thy childhood by that wrinkled earl with the gloating eyes; or marred rather by thine own vanity! Those flesh-pots of Egypt! Are they not always thus bitter in the eating?

CHAPTER XLIV.

CONCLUSION.