"That's all that I ask for, all that I wish. This is strange courtship,"

said she, trying to laugh; "but let us carry it through consistently. I conclude you are not rich; neither am I,--at least, for the present; a very few weeks, however, will put me in possession of a large property.

It is in land in America. The legal formalities which are necessary will be completed almost immediately, and my co-heir is now coming over from the States to meet me, and establish his claim also. These are all confidences, remember, for I now speak to you freely; and, in the same spirit that I make them, I ask _you_ to trust me,--to trust me fully and wholly, with a faith that says, 'I will wait to the end--to the very end!

"Let this be my pledge," said he, taking her hand and kissing it.

"Faith!" said he, after a second or two, "I can scarcely believe in my good luck. It seems to be every moment so like a dream to think that you consent to take me; just, too, when I was beginning to feel that fortune had clean forgotten me. You are not listening to me, not minding a word I say. What is it, then, you are thinking of?"

"I was plotting," said she, gravely.

"Plotting,--more plotting! Why can't we go along now on the high-road, without looking for by-paths?"

"Not yet,--not yet awhile. Attend to me, now. It is not likely that we can meet again very soon. My coming out here to-day was at great risk, for I am believed to be ill and in bed with a feverish cold. I cannot venture to repeat this peril, but you shall hear from me. My maid is to be trusted, and will bring you tidings of me. With to-morrow's post I hope to learn where Paten is, and when he will be here. You shall learn both immediately, and be prepared to act on the information. Above all things, bear in mind that though I hate this man, all my abhorrence of him is nothing--actually nothing--to my desire to regain my letters.

For them I would forego everything. Had I but these in my possession, I could wait for vengeance, and wait patiently."

"So that from himself personally you fear nothing?"

"Nothing. He cannot say more of me than is open to all the world to say--" She stopped, and grew red, for she felt that her impetuosity had carried her further than she was aware. "Remember once more, then, if you could buy them, steal them, get them in any way,--I care not how, that my object is fulfilled,--the day you place them in this hand it is your own!"

He burst out into some rhapsody of his delight, but checked himself as suddenly, when he saw that her face had assumed its former look of preoccupation.

"Plotting again?" asked he, half peevishly.

"I have need to plot," said she, mournfully, as she leaned her head upon her band; and now there came over her countenance a look of deepest sorrow. "I grow very weary of all this at times," said she, in a faint and broken voice; "so weary that I half suspect it were better to throw the cards down, and say, 'There! I 've lost! What's the stake?' I believe I could do this. I am convinced I could, if I were certain that there was one man or one woman on the earth who would give me one word of pity, or bestow one syllable of compassion for my fall."

"But surely your daughter Clara--"

"Clara is not my daughter; she is nothing to me,--never was, never can be. We are separated, besides, never to meet again, and I charge you not to speak of her."

"May I never! if I can see my way at all. It 's out of one mystery into another. Will you just tell me--"

"Ask me nothing. You have heard from me this day what I have never told another. But I have confidence in your good faith, and can say, 'If you rue your bargain, there is yet time to say so,' and you may leave this as free as when you entered it."

"You never mistook a man more. It's not going back I was thinking of; but surely I might ask--"

"Once for all, I will not be questioned. There never lived that man or woman who could thread their way safely through difficulties, if they waited to have every obstacle canvassed and every possible mystery explained. You must leave me to my own guidance here; and one of its first conditions is, not to shake my confidence in myself."

"Won't you even tell me when we 're to be one?"

"What an ardent lover it is!" said she, laughing. "There, fetch me my shawl, and let me see that you know how to put it properly on my shoulders. No liberties, sir! and least of all when they crush a Parisian bonnet. The evening is falling already, and I must set off homewards."

"Won't you give me a seat in the carriage with you? Surely, you 'd not see me ride back in such a downpour as that."

"I should think I would. I 'd leave you to go it on foot rather than commit such an indiscretion. Drive back to Rome with Mr. O'Shea alone!

What would the world say? What would Sir William Heathcote say, who expects to make me Lady Heathcote some early day next month?"

"By the way, I heard that story. An old fellow, called Nick Holmes, told me--"

"What old Nick told you could scarcely be true. There, will you order the carriage to the door, and give these good people some money? Ain't you charmed that I give you one of a husband's privileges so early?

Don't dare to answer me; an Irishman never has the discretion to reply to a liberty as he ought. Is that poor beast yours?" asked she, as they gained the door, and saw a horse standing, all shivering and wretched, under a frail shed.

"He was this morning, but I had the good luck to sell him before I took this ride."

"I must really compliment you," said she, laughing heartily. "A gentleman who makes love so economically ought to be a model of order when a husband." And with this she stepped in, and drove away.

CHAPTER II. A DINNER OF TWO

The O'Shea returned to Rome at a "slapping pace." He did his eight miles of heavy ground within forty minutes. But neither the speed nor the storm could turn his thoughts from the scene he had just passed through.

It was with truth he said that he could not give credit to the fact of such good fortune as to believe she would accept him; and yet the more he reflected on the subject, the more was he puzzled and disconcerted.

When he had last seen her, she refused him,--refused him absolutely and flatly; she even hinted at a reason that seemed unanswerable, and suggested that, though they might aid each other as friends, there could be no copartnership of interests. "What has led her to this change of mind, Heaven knows. It is no lucky turn of fortune on my side can have induced it; my prospects were never bleaker. And then," thought he, "of what nature is this same secret, or rather these secrets, of hers, for they seem to grow in clusters? What can she have done? or what has Penthony Morris done? Is he alive? Is he at Norfolk Island? Was he a forger, or worse? How much does Paten know about her? What power has he over her besides the possession of these letters? Is Paten Penthony Morris?" It was thus that his mind went to and fro, like a surging sea, restless and not advancing. Never was there a man more tortured by his conjectures. He knew that she might marry Sir William Heathcote if she liked; why, then, prefer himself to a man of station and fortune? Was it that he was more likely to enact the vengeance she thirsted for than the old Baronet? Ay, that was a reasonable calculation. She was right there, and he 'd bring Master Paten "to book," as sure as his name was O'Shea. That was the sort of thing he understood as well as any man in Europe. He had been out scores of times, and knew how to pick a quarrel, and to aggravate it, and make it perfectly beyond all possibility of arrangement, as well as any fire-eater of a French line regiment. That was, perhaps, the reason of the widow's choice of him. If she married Heathcote, it would be a case for lawyers: a great trial at Westminster, and a great scandal in the papers. "But with me it will be all quiet and peaceable. I 'll get back her letters, or I 'll know why."

He next bethought him of her fortune. He wished she had told him more about it,--how it came to her,--was it by settlement,--was it from the Morrises? He wished, too, it had not been in America; he was not quite sure that property there meant anything at all; and, lastly, he brought to mind that though he had proposed for dozens of women, this was the only occasion he was not asked what he could secure by settlement, and how much he would give as pin-money. No, on that score she was delicacy itself, and he was one to appreciate all the refinement of her reserve.

Indeed, if it came to the old business of searches, and showing titles, and all the other exposures of the O'Shea family, he felt that he would rather die a bachelor than encounter them. "She knew how to catch me!

'A row to fight through, and no questions asked about money, O'Shea,'

says she. 'Can you resist temptation like that?'"

As he alighted at the hotel, he saw Agincourt standing at a window, and evidently laughing at the dripping, mud-stained appearance he presented.

"I hope and trust that was n't the nag I bought this morning," said he to O'Shea, as he entered the room.

"The very same; and I never saw him in finer heart. If you only witnessed the way he carried me through those ploughed fields out there!

He's strong in the loins as a cart-horse."

"I must say that you appear to have ridden him as a friend's horse. He seemed dead beat, as he was led away."

"He's fresh as a four-year old."

"Well, never mind, go and dress for dinner, for you're half an hour behind time already."

O'Shea was not sorry to have the excuse, and harried off to make his toilet.

Freytag was aware that his guest was a "Milor'," and the dinner was very good, and the wine reasonably so; and the two, as they placed a little spider-table between them before the fire, seemed fully conscious of all the enjoyment of the situation.

Agincourt said, "Is not this jolly?" And so it was. And what is there jollier than to be about sixteen or seventeen years of age, with good health, good station, and ample means? To be launched into manhood, too, as a soldier, without one detracting sense of man's troubles and cares,--to feel that your elders condescend to be your equals, and will even accept your invitation to dinner!--ay, and more, practise towards you all those little flatteries and attentions which, however vapid ten years later, are positive ecstasies now!

But of all its glorious privileges there is not one can compare with the boundless self-confidence of youth, that implicit faith not alone in its energy and activity, its fearless contempt for danger, and its indifference to hardships, but, more strange still, in its superior sharpness and knowledge of life! Oh dear! are we not shrewd fellows when we matriculate at Christ Church, or see ourselves gazetted Cornet in the Horse Guards Purple? Who ever equalled us in all the wiles and schemes of mankind? Must he not rise early who means to dupe us? Have we not a registered catalogue of all the knaveries that have ever been practised on the unsuspecting? Truly have we; and if suspicion were a safeguard, nothing can harm us.

Now, Agincourt was a fine, true-hearted, generous young fellow,--manly and straightforward,--but he had imbibed his share of this tendency. He fancied himself subtle, and imagined that a nice negotiation could not be intrusted to better hands. Besides this, he was eager to impress Heath-cote with a high opinion of his skill, and show that even a regular man of the world like O'Shea was not near a match for him.

"I 'm not going to drink that light claret such an evening as this,"

said O'Shea, pushing away his just-tasted glass. "Let us have something a shade warmer."

"Ring the bell, and order what you like."

"Here, this will do,--'Clos Vougeot,'" said O'Shea, pointing out to the waiter the name on the wine carte."

"And if that be a failure, I 'll fall back on brandy-and-water, the refuge of a man after bad wine, just as disappointed young ladies take to a convent. If you can drink that little tipple, Agincourt, you 're right to do it. You 'll come to Burgundy at forty, and to rough port ten years later; but you 've a wide margin left before that. How old are you?"