"Certainly--Lord Kilcullen; and, as he is Miss Wyndham's cousin, and Lord Cashel's son, I could not but think the report authentic."

This overset Frank still more thoroughly. Lord Kilcullen would never have spread the report publicly unless he had been authorised to do so by Lord Cashel. Frank and Lord Kilcullen had never been intimate; and the former was aware that the other had always been averse to the proposed marriage; but still, he would never have openly declared that the marriage was broken off, had he not had some authority for saying so.

"As you seem somewhat surprised," continued Mat, seeing that Lord Ballindine remained silent, and apparently at a loss for what he ought to say, "perhaps I ought to tell you, that Lord Kilcullen mentioned it last night very publicly--at a dinner-party, as an absolute fact.

Indeed, from his manner, I thought he wished it to be generally made known. I presumed, therefore, that it had been mutually agreed between you, that the event was not to come off--that the match was not to be run; and, with my peculiar views, you know, on the subject of matrimony, I thought it a fair point for congratulation. If Lord Kilcullen had misled me, I heartily beg to apologise; and at the same time, by giving you my authority, to show you that I could not intend anything impertinent. If it suits you, you are quite at liberty to tell Lord Kilcullen all I have told you; and, if you wish me to contradict the report, which I must own I have spread, I will do so."

Frank felt that he could not be angry with Mat Tierney; he therefore thanked him for his open explanation, and, merely muttering something about private affairs not being worthy of public interest, rode off towards Handicap Lodge.

It appeared very plain to him that the Grey Abbey family must have discarded him--that f.a.n.n.y Wyndham, Lord and Lady Cashel, and the whole set, must have made up their minds to drop him altogether; otherwise, one of the family would not have openly declared the match at an end.

And yet he was at a loss to conceive how they could have done so--how even Lord Cashel could have reconciled it to himself to do so, without the common-place courtesy of writing to him on the subject. And then, when he thought of her, "his own f.a.n.n.y," as he had so often called her, he was still more bewildered: she, with whom he had sat for so many sweet hours talking of the impossibility of their ever forgetting, deserting, or even slighting each other; she, who had been so entirely devoted to him--so much more than engaged to him--could she have lent her name to such a heartless mode of breaking her faith?

"If I had merely proposed for her through her guardian," thought Frank, to himself--"if I had got Lord Cashel to make the engagement, as many men do, I should not be surprised; but after all that has pa.s.sed between us--after all her vows, and all her--" and then Lord Ballindine struck his horse with his heel, and made a cut at the air with his whip, as he remembered certain pa.s.sages more binding even than promises, warmer even than vows, which seemed to make him as miserable now as they had made him happy at the time of their occurrence. "I would not believe it," he continued, meditating, "if twenty Kilcullens said it, or if fifty Mat Tierneys swore to it!" and then he rode on towards the lodge, in a state of mind for which I am quite unable to account, if his disbelief in f.a.n.n.y Wyndham's constancy was really as strong as he had declared it to be. And, as he rode, many unusual thoughts--for, hitherto, Frank had not been a very deep-thinking man--crowded his mind, as to the baseness, falsehood, and iniquity of the human race, especially of rich cautious old peers who had beautiful wards in their power.

By the time he had reached the lodge, he had determined that he must now do something, and that, as he was quite unable to come to any satisfactory conclusion on his own una.s.sisted judgment, he must consult Blake, who, by the bye, was nearly as sick of f.a.n.n.y Wyndham as he would have been had he himself been the person engaged to marry her.

As he rode round to the yard, he saw his friend standing at the door of one of the stables, with a cigar in his mouth.

"Well, Frank, how does Brien go to-day? Not that he'll ever be the thing till he gets to the other side of the water. They'll never be able to bring a horse out as he should be, on the Curragh, till they've regular trained gallops. The slightest frost in spring, or sun in summer, and the ground's so hard, you might as well gallop your horse down the pavement of Grafton Street."

"Confound the horse," answered Frank; "come here, Dot, a minute. I want to speak to you."

"What the d----l's the matter?--he's not lame, is he?"

"Who?--what?--Brien Boru? Not that I know of. I wish the brute had never been foaled."

"And why so? What crotchet have you got in your head now? Something wrong about f.a.n.n.y, I suppose?"

"Why, did you hear anything?"

"Nothing but what you've told me."

"I've just seen Mat Tierney, and he told me that Kilcullen had declared, at a large dinner-party, yesterday, that the match between me and his cousin was finally broken off."

"You wouldn't believe what Mat Tierney would say? Mat was only taking a rise out of you."

"Not at all: he was not only speaking seriously, but he told me what I'm very sure was the truth, as far as Lord Kilcullen was concerned. I mean, I'm sure Kilcullen said it, and in the most public manner he could; and now, the question is, what had I better do?"

"There's no doubt as to what you'd better do; the question is what you'd rather do?"

"But what had I _better_ do? call on Kilcullen for an explanation?"

"That's the last thing to think of. No; but declare what he reports to be the truth; return Miss Wyndham the lock of hair you have in your desk, and next your heart, or wherever you keep it; write her a pretty note, and conclude by saying that the 'Adriatic's free to wed another'. That's what I should do."

"It's very odd, Blake, that you won't speak seriously to a man for a moment. You've as much heart in you as one of your own horses. I wish I'd never come to this cursed lodge of yours. I'd be all right then."

"As for my heart, Frank, if I have as much as my horses, I ought to be contented--for race-horses are usually considered to have a good deal; as for my cursed lodge, I can a.s.sure you I have endeavoured, and, if you will allow me, I will still endeavour, to make it as agreeable to you as I am able; and as to my speaking seriously, upon my word, I never spoke more so. You asked me what I thought you had better do--and I began by telling you there would be a great difference between that and what you'd rather do."

"But, in heaven's name, why would you have me break off with Miss Wyndham, when every one knows I'm engaged to her; and when you know that I wish to marry her?"

"Firstly, to prevent her breaking off with you--though I fear there's hardly time for that; and secondly, in consequence--as the newspapers say, of incompatibility of temper."

"Why, you don't even know her!"

"But I know you, and I know what your joint income would be, and I know that there would be great incompatibility between you, as Lord Ballindine, with a wife and family--and fifteen hundred a year, or so.

But mind, I'm only telling you what I think you'd better do."

"Well, I shan't do that. If I was once settled down, I could live as well on fifteen hundred a year as any country gentleman in Ireland.

It's only the interference of Lord Cashel that makes me determined not to pull in till I am married. If he had let me have my own way, I shouldn't, by this time, have had a horse in the world, except one or two hunters or so, down in the country."

"Well, Frank, if you're determined to get yourself married, I'll give you the best advice in my power as to the means of doing it. Isn't that what you want?"

"I want to know what you think I ought to do, just at this minute."

"With matrimony as the winning-post?"

"You know I wish to marry f.a.n.n.y Wyndham."

"And the sooner the better--is that it?"

"Of course. She'll be of age now, in a few days," replied Lord Ballindine.

"Then I advise you to order a new blue coat, and to buy a wedding-ring."

"Confusion!" cried Frank, stamping his foot; and turning away in a pa.s.sion; and then he took up his hat, to rush out of the room, in which the latter part of the conversation had taken place.

"Stop a minute, Frank," said Blake, "and don't be in a pa.s.sion. What I said was only meant to show you how easy I think it is for you to marry Miss Wyndham if you choose."

"Easy! and every soul at Grey Abbey turned against me, in consequence of my owning that brute of a horse! I'll go over there at once, and I'll show Lord Cashel that at any rate he shall not treat me like a child. As for Kilcullen, if he interferes with me or my name in any way, I'll--"

"You'll what?--thrash him?"

"Indeed, I'd like nothing better!"

"And then shoot him--be tried by your peers--and perhaps hung; is that it?"

"Oh, that's nonsense. I don't wish to fight any one, but I am not going to be insulted."

"I don't think you are: I don't think there's the least chance of Kilcullen insulting you; he has too much worldly wisdom. But to come back to Miss Wyndham: if you really mean to marry her, and if, as I believe, she is really fond of you, Lord Cashel and all the family can't prevent it. She is probably angry that you have not been over there; he is probably irate at your staying here, and, not unlikely, has made use of her own anger to make her think that she has quarrelled with you; and hence Kilcullen's report."

"And what shall I do now?"

"Nothing to-day, but eat your dinner, and drink your wine. Ride over to-morrow, see Lord Cashel, and tell him--but do it quite coolly, if you can--exactly what you have heard, and how you have heard it, and beg him to a.s.sure Lord Kilcullen that he is mistaken in his notion that the match is off; and beg also that the report may not be repeated. Do this; and do it as if you were Lord Cashel's equal, not as if you were his son, or his servant. If you are collected and steady with him for ten minutes, you'll soon find that he will become bothered and unsteady."

"That's very easy to say here, but it's not so easy to do there. You don't know him as I do: he's so sedate, and so slow, and so dull--especially sitting alone, as he does of a morning, in that large, dingy, uncomfortable, dusty-looking book-room of his. He measures his words like senna and salts, and their tone is as disagreeable."

"Then do you drop out yours like prussic acid, and you'll beat him at his own game. Those are all externals, my dear fellow. When a man knows he has nothing within his head to trust to,--when he has neither sense nor genius, he puts on a wig, ties up his neck in a white choker, sits in a big chair, and frightens the world with his silence. Remember, if you were not a baby, he would not be a bugbear."

"And should I not ask to see f.a.n.n.y?"