PALLIDA MORS
Mr. Somers, returning from Hap House, gave Owen’s
message to Herbert Fitzgerald, but at the same time
told him that he did not think any good would come
of such a meeting.
“I went over there,” he said, “because
I would not willingly omit anything that Mr. Prendergast
had suggested; but I did not expect any good to come
of it. You know what I have always thought of
Owen Fitzgerald.”
“But Mr. Prendergast said that he behaved so
well.”
“He did not know Prendergast, and was cowed
for the moment by what he had heard. That was
natural enough. You do as you like, however;
only do not have him over to Castle Richmond.”
Owen, however, did not trust solely to Mr. Somers,
but on the following day wrote to Herbert, suggesting
that they had better meet, and begging that the place
and time of meeting might be named. He himself
again suggested Hap House, and declared that he would
be at home on any day and at any hour that his “cousin”
might name, “only,” as he added, “the
sooner the better.” Herbert wrote back by
the same messenger, saying that he would be with him
early on the following morning; and on the following
morning he drove up to the door of Hap House, while
Owen was still sitting with his coffee-pot and knife
and fork before him.
Captain Donnellan, whom we saw there on the occasion
of our first morning visit, was now gone, and Owen
Fitzgerald was all alone in his home. The captain
had been an accustomed guest, spending perhaps half
his time there during the hunting season, but since
Mr. Prendergast had been at Hap House, he had been
made to understand that the master would fain be alone.
And since that day Owen had never hunted, nor been
noticed in his old haunts, nor had been seen talking
to his old friends. He had remained at home, sitting
over the fire thinking, wandering up and down his
own avenue, or standing about the stable, idly, almost
unconscious of the grooming of his horses. Once
and once only he had been mounted, and then as the
dusk of evening was coming on he had trotted over
quickly to Desmond Court, as though he had in hand
some purport of great moment, but if so he changed
his mind when he came to the gate, for he walked on
slowly for three or four hundred yards beyond it, and
then, turning his horse’s head, slowly made
his way back past the gate, and then trotted quickly
home to Hap House. In these moments of his life
he must make or mar himself for life, ’twas
so that he felt it, and how should he make himself,
or how avoid the marring? That was the question
which he now strove to answer.
When Herbert entered the room, he rose from his chair,
and walked quickly up to his visitor, with extended
hand, and a look of welcome in his face. His
manner was very different from that with which he
had turned and parted from his cousin not many days
since in the demesne at Castle Richmond. Then
he had intended absolutely to defy Herbert Fitzgerald;
but there was no spirit of defiance now, either in
his hand, or face, or in the tone of his voice.
