After your imprudence with Lady Clara Desmond, I could not of course
ask you to come to Desmond Court."

"I may have been presumptuous, Lady Desmond, but I do not think that
I have been imprudent. I love your daughter dearly and I told her
so. Immediately afterwards I told the same to her brother; and she,
no doubt, has told the same to you."

"Yes, she has, Mr. Fitzgerald. Clara, as you are well aware, is a
child, absolutely a child; much more so than is usual with girls of
her age. The knowledge of this should, I think, have protected her
from your advances."

"But I absolutely deny any such knowledge. And more than that, I
think that you are greatly mistaken as to her character."

"Mistaken, sir, as to my own daughter?"

"Yes, Lady Desmond; I think you are. I think--"

"On such a matter, Mr. Fitzgerald, I need not trouble you for an
expression of your thoughts. Nor need we argue that subject any
further. You must of course be aware that all ideas of any such
marriage as this must be laid aside."

"On what grounds, Lady Desmond?"

Now this appeared to the countess to be rather impudent on the part
of the young squire. The reasons why he, Owen Fitzgerald of Hap
House, should not marry a daughter of an Earl of Desmond, seemed to