Castle Richmond | Page 8

young earl's holidays. Now and again he did ride over in the
long intervals, and when he did do so was not frowned upon by the
countess; and so, at the end of the winter holidays subsequent to that
former winter in which the earl had had his tumble, people through the
county began to say that he and the countess were about to become man
and wife.
It was just then that people in the county were also beginning to talk of

the Hay House orgies; and the double scandal reached Owen's ears, one
shortly after the other. That orgies scandal did not hurt him much. It is,
alas! too true that consciousness of such a reputation does not often
hurt a young man's feelings. But the other rumour did wound him.
What! he sell himself to a widowed countess almost old enough to be
his mother; or bestow himself rather--for what was there in return that
could be reckoned as a price? At any rate, he had given no one cause to
utter such falsehood, such calumny as that. No; it certainly was not
probable that he should marry the countess.
But this set him to ask himself whether it might or might not be
possible that he should marry some one else. Might it not be well for
him if he could find a younger bride at Desmond Court? Not for
nothing had he ridden over there through those bleak mountains; not
for nothing, nor yet solely with the view of tying flies for the young
earl's summer fishing, or preparing the new nag for his winter's hunting.
Those large bright eyes had asked him many questions. Would it not be
well that he should answer them?
For many months of that year Clara Desmond had hardly spoken to him.
Then, in the summer evening, as he and her brother would lie sprawling
together on the banks of the little Desmond river, while the lad was
talking of his fish, and his school, and his cricket club, she would stand
by and listen, and so gradually she learned to speak.
And the mother also would sometimes be there; or else she would
welcome Fitzgerald in to tea, and let him stay there talking as though
they were all at home, till he would have to make a midnight ride of it
before he reached Hap House. It seemed that no fear as to he daughter
had ever crossed the mother's mind; that no idea had ever come upon
her that her favoured visitor might learn to love the young girl with
whom he was allowed to associate on so intimate a footing. Once or
twice he had caught himself calling her Clara, and had done so even
before her mother; but no notice had been taken of it. In truth, Lady
Desmond did not know her daughter, for the mother took her absolutely
to be a child, when in fact she was a child no longer.
"You take Clara round by the bridge," said the earl to his friend one
August evening, as they were standing together on the banks of the
river, about a quarter of a mile distant from the sombre old pile in
which the family lived. "You take Clara round by the bridge, and I will

get over the stepping-stones." And so the lad, with his rod in his hand,
began to descend the steep bank.
"I can get over the stepping-stones, too, Patrick," said she.
"Can you though, my gay young woman? You'll be over your ankles if
you do. That rain didn't come down yesterday for nothing."
Clara as she spoke had come up to the bank, and now looked wistfully
down at the stepping-stones. She had crossed them scores of times,
sometimes with her brother, and often by herself. Why was it that she
was so anxious to cross them now?
"It's no use your trying," said her brother who was now half across, and
who spoke from the middle of the river. "Don't you let her, Owen.
She'll slip in, and then there will be no end of a row up at the house."
"You had better come round by the bridge," said Fitzgerald. "It is not
only that the stones are nearly under water, but they are wet, and you
would slip."
So cautioned, Lady Clara allowed herself to be persuaded, and turned
upwards along the river by a little path that led to a foot bridge. It was
some quarter of a mile thither, and it would be the same distance down
the river again before she regained her brother.
"I needn't bring you with me, you know," she said to Fitzgerald. "You
can get over the stones easily, and I can go very well by myself."
But it