"Herbert, if you quarrel with him you will make me wretched. I think
it would kill me."

"I shall not do it if I can help it, Clara. But it is my duty to
protect you, and if it becomes necessary I must do so; you have no
father, and no brother of an age to speak to him, and that
consideration alone should have saved you from such an attack."

Clara said nothing more, for she knew that she could not speak out
to him the feelings of her heart. She could not plead to him that
she had injured Owen, that she had loved him and then given him up;
that she had been false to him: she could not confess that, after
all, the tribute of such a man's love could not be regarded by her
as an offence. So she said nothing further, but walked on in
silence, leaning on his arm.

They were now close to the house, and as they drew near to it Lady
Desmond met them on the door-step. "I dare say you have heard that
we had a visitor here this morning," she said, taking Herbert's hand
in an affectionate motherly way, and smiling on him with all her
sweetness.

Herbert said that he had heard it, and expressed an opinion that Mr.
Owen Fitzgerald would have been acting far more wisely to have
remained at home at Hap House.

"Yes, perhaps so; certainly so," said Lady Desmond, putting her arm
within that of her future son, and walking back with him through the
great hall. "He would have been wiser: he would have saved dear
Clara from a painful half-hour, and he would have saved himself from