"Bid God bless me before you leave me."
"Well, I will say that. May God bless you, in this world and in the next! And now, Lady Clara Desmond, good-bye!" and he tendered to her his hand.
She took it, and pressed it between both of hers, and looked up into his face, and stood so while the fast tears ran down her face. He must have been more or less than man had he not relented then. "And Owen," she said, "dear Owen, may God in his mercy bless you also, and make you happy, and give you some one that you can love, and—and—teach you in your heart to forgive the injury I have done you." And then she stooped down her head and pressed her lips upon the hand which she held within her own.
"Forgive you! Well—I do forgive you. Perhaps it may be right that we should both forgive; though I have not wittingly brought unhappiness upon you. But what there is to be forgiven on my side, I do forgive. And—and I hope that you may be happy." They were the last words that he spoke; and then leading her back to her seat, he placed her there, and without turning to look at her again, he left the room.
He hurried down into the court, and called for his horse. As he stood there, when his foot was in the stirrup, and his hand on the animal's neck, Lord Desmond came up to him. "Good-bye, Desmond," he said. "It is all over; God knows when you and I may meet again." And without waiting for a word of reply he rode out under the porch, and putting spurs to his horse, galloped fast across the park. The earl, when he spoke of it afterwards to his mother, said that Owen's face had been as it were a thundercloud.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
FOX-HUNTING IN SPINNY LANE.
I think it will be acknowledged that Mr. Prendergast had said no word throughout the conversation recorded in a late chapter as having taken place between him and Herbert Fitzgerald over their wine, which could lead Herbert to think it possible that he might yet recover his lost inheritance; but nevertheless during the whole of that evening he held in his pocket a letter, received by him only that afternoon, which did encourage him to think that such an event might at any rate be possible. And, indeed, he held in his pocket two letters, having a tendency to the same effect, but we shall have nothing now to say as to that letter from Mr. Somers of which we have spoken before.
It must be understood that up to this time certain inquiries had been going on with reference to the life of Mr. Matthew Mollett, and that these inquiries were being made by agents employed by Mr. Prendergast. He had found that Mollett's identity with Talbot had been so fully proved as to make it, in his opinion, absolutely necessary that Herbert and his mother should openly give up Castle Richmond. But, nevertheless, without a hope, and in obedience solely to what he felt that prudence demanded in so momentous a matter, he did prosecute all manner of inquiries;—but prosecuted them altogether in vain. And now, O thou most acute of lawyers, this new twinkling spark of hope has come to thee from a source whence thou least expectedst it!