Lady Clara was specially her friend, and she was too anxious to secure such a sister-in-law to make any joke upon such a subject.
On that occasion nothing more was said about it; but Sir Thomas hoped within his heart that his wife was right in prophesying that his son would do nothing sudden in this matter.
On the following morning young Fitzgerald gave the necessary orders at Berryhill very quickly, and then coming back remounted another horse without going into the house.

Then he trotted off to Clady, passing the gate of Desmond Court without calling; did what he had promised to do at Clady, or rather that which he had made to stand as an excuse for again visiting that part of the world so quickly; and after that, with a conscience let us hope quite clear, rode up the avenue at Desmond Court.

It was still early in the day when he got there, probably not much after two o'clock; and yet Mary had been quite correct in foretelling that he would only be home just in time for dinner.
But, nevertheless, he had not seen Lady Desmond.

Why or how it had occurred that she had been absent from the drawing-room the whole of the two hours which he had passed in the house, it may be unnecessary to explain.

Such, however, had been the fact.