"It is not a question of degradation, but of prudence;--of the
ordinary caution which I, as a mother, am bound to use as regards my
daughter. Oh, Mr. Fitzgerald!" and she now altered her tone as she
spoke to him; "we have all been so pleased to know you, so happy to
have you there; why have you destroyed all this by one half-hour's
folly?"

"The folly, as you call it, Lady Desmond, has been premeditated for
the last twelve months."

"For twelve months!" said she, taken absolutely by surprise, and in
her surprise believing him.

"Yes, for twelve months. Ever since I began to know your daughter, I
have loved her. You say that your daughter is a child. I also
thought so this time last year, in our last winter holidays. I
thought so then; and though I loved her as a child, I kept it to
myself. Now she is a woman, and so thinking I have spoken to her as
one. I have told her that I loved her, as I now tell you that come
what may I must continue to do so. Had she made me believe that I
was indifferent to her, absence, perhaps, and distance might have
taught me to forget her. But such, I think, is not the case."

"And you must forget her now."

"Never, Lady Desmond."

"Nonsense, sir. A child that does not know her own mind, that thinks
of a lover as she does of some new toy, whose first appearance in