Their places were as on the day before—Sir Victor in the possession of Trix, Charley with Edith. But the baronet's gloom was gone—hope filled his heart. She did not love her cousin,—of that he had convinced himself,—and one day he might call her wife.
Sir Victor Catheron was that rara avis, a modest young man. That this American girl, penniless and pedigreeless, was beneath him, he never thought—of his own rank and wealth, as motives to influence her, he never once dreamed. Nothing base or mercenary could find a place in so fair a creature; so noble and beautiful a face must surely be emblematic of a still more noble and beautiful soul. Alas! for the blindness of people in love.
It was a day of delight, a day of cloudless skies, sparkling sunshine, fresh mountain breezes, sublime scenery. Wild, bleak valleys, frowning Kerry rocks, roaring torrents, bare-footed, ragged children, pigs and people beneath the same thatched roof, such squalor and utter poverty as in their dreams they had never imagined.
"Good Heaven!" Edith said, with a shudder, "how can life be worth living in such horrible poverty as this?"
"The bugbear of your life seems to be poverty, Edith," Charley answered. "I daresay these people eat and sleep, fall in love, marry, and are happy even here."
"My dear Mr. Stuart, what a sentimental speech, and sillier even than it is sentimental. Marry and are happy! They marry no doubt, and the pig lives in the corner, and every cabin swarms with children, but—happy! Charley, I used to think you had one or two grains of common-sense, at least—now I begin to doubt it."
"I begin to doubt it myself, since I have had the pleasure of knowing Edith Darrell. I defy mortal man to keep common-sense, or uncommon-sense, long in her company. Poverty and misery, in your lexicon, mean the same thing."
"The same thing. There is no earthly evil that can equal poverty."
They reached Killarney late in the evening, and drove to the "Victoria." The perfect weather still continued, the moon that had lit their last night at sea, on the wane now, lifted its silver light over the matchless Lakes of Killarney, lying like sheets of crystal light beneath.
"Oh, how lovely!" Trix exclaimed. The rest stood silent. There is a beauty so intense as to be beyond words of praise—so sweet, so solemn, as to hush the very beating of our hearts. It was such beauty as this they looked upon now.