nothing to say to her. She was sitting there alone, with her head
resting on her hand, with that sternness at her heart and a cloud
upon her brow, but she was not thinking of her daughter. Had she
not, with her skill and motherly care, provided well for Clara? Had
she not saved her daughter from all the perils which beset the path
of a young girl? Had she not so brought her child up and put her
forth into the world, that, portionless as that child was, all the
best things of the world had been showered into her lap? Why should
the countess think more of her daughter? It was of herself she was
thinking; and of what her life would be all alone, absolutely alone,
in that huge frightful home of hers, without a friend, almost
without an acquaintance, without one soul near her whom she could
love or who would love her. She had put out her hand to Owen
Fitzgerald, and he had rejected it. Her he had regarded merely as
the mother of the woman he loved. And then the Countess of Desmond
began to ask herself if she were old and wrinkled and ugly, only fit
to be a dowager in mind, body, and in name!

Over the same ground! Yes, always over the same ground. Lady Clara
never varied her walk. It went from the front entrance of the court,
with one great curve, down to the old ruined lodge which opened on
to the road running from Kanturk to Cork. It was here that the row
of elm trees stood, and it was here that she had once walked with a
hot, eager lover beside her, while a docile horse followed behind
their feet. It was here that she walked daily; and was it possible
that she should walk here without thinking of him?

It was always on the little well-worn path by the road-side, not on
the road itself, that she took her measured exercise; and now, as
she went along, she saw on the moist earth the fresh prints of a