"By the way, Mr. Oranmore, as you are from the city," broke in Lizzie, "perhaps you may have heard of some one there who has lost a child?"
"What—what did you say?—a child?" exclaimed Oranmore, starting so suddenly and looking so wild, that all looked at him in surprise.
"Yes. But, dear me, how pale you look! Are you ill?"
"Ill! Oh, no; pray go on," said Oranmore, recovering himself by an effort.
"Well; last Christmas eve, Mrs. Gower was returning from the city, where she had been to make purchases, and taking the shore road, picked up an infant on the beach, and brought it home. It is a wonder no inquiries were made about it."
Barry Oranmore breathed freely again. It could not be his child, for he had seen the nurse before leaving the city; and she, fearing to lose her annuity, had told him the child was alive and well: therefore it must be another.
A week passed rapidly away at Sunset Hall. There were sails on the bay, and rides over the hills, and shady forest walks, and drives through the village, and long romantic rambles in the moonlight. And Lizzie Erliston was in love. Was he? She thought so sometimes when his deep, dark eyes would rest on her, and fill with softest languor as they wandered side by side. But, then, had she not discovered his restlessness, his evident longing to be away, though he still remained? Something in his conduct saddened and troubled her; for she loved him as devotedly as it was in the power of a nature essentially shallow and selfish to love. But the dangerous spell of his voice and smile threw a glamour over her senses. She could almost have loved his very faults, had she known them. And, yielding herself to that witching spell, Lizzie Erliston, who had often caught others, at last found herself caught.