"And Lucy's mother?" I asked.

She shook her head. "I never knew her," said she. "Lucy was about
three years old when I was engaged to take charge of her. Her mother
was dead."

"But you know her name?--you can tell if it was Mary Fitzgerald?"

She looked astonished. "That was her name. But, sir, how came you
to be so well acquainted with it? It was a mystery to the whole
household at Skipford Court. She was some beautiful young woman whom
he lured away from her protectors while he was abroad. I have heard
said he practised some terrible deceit upon her, and when she came to
know it, she was neither to have nor to hold, but rushed off from his
very arms, and threw herself into a rapid stream and was drowned. It
stung him deep with remorse, but I used to think the remembrance of
the mother's cruel death made him love the child yet dearer."

I told her, as briefly as might be, of my researches after the
descendant and heir of the Fitzgeralds of Kildoon, and added--
something of my old lawyer spirit returning into me for the moment--
that I had no doubt but that we should prove Lucy to be by right
possessed of large estates in Ireland.

No flush came over her gray face; no light into her eyes. "And what
is all the wealth in the whole world to that poor girl?" she said.
"It will not free her from the ghastly bewitchment which persecutes
her. As for money, what a pitiful thing it is! it cannot touch her."

"No more can the Evil Creature harm her," I said. "Her holy nature