you now. This time the day after to-morrow, I will tell you
everything that I know. But do not speak of this to your mother. I
make this promise only to you." And then he passed on into his bed-
room.

With this Herbert was obliged to be content. That evening he again
saw his father and mother, but he told them nothing of what had
passed between him and Mr. Prendergast. Lady Fitzgerald remained in
the study with Sir Thomas the whole evening, nay, almost the whole
night, and the slow hours as they passed there were very dreadful.
No one came to table but Aunt Letty, Mr. Prendergast, and Herbert,
and between them hardly a word was spoken. The poor girls had found
themselves utterly unable to appear. They were dissolved in tears,
and crouching over the fire in their own room. And the moment that
Aunt Letty left the table Mr. Prendergast arose also. He was
suffering, he said, cruelly from headache, and would ask permission
to go to his chamber. It would have been impossible for him to have
sat there pretending to sip his wine with Herbert Fitzgerald.

After this Herbert again went to his father, and then, in the gloom
of the evening, he found Mr. Somers in the office, a little
magistrate's room, that was used both by him and by Sir Thomas. But
nothing passed between them. Herbert had nothing to tell. And then
at about nine he also went up to his bedroom. A more melancholy day
than that had never shed its gloom upon Castle Richmond.