"And I think I should see him, if he will insist upon it.

It is foolish in him to persist in remembering two words which you spoke to him as a child; but perhaps it will be well that you should tell him yourself that you were a child when you spoke those two words." And then Clara sent off the following reply, written under her mother's dictation; though the countess strove very hard to convince her daughter that she was wording it out of her own head:-- Lady Clara Desmond presents her compliments to Mr.Owen Fitzgerald, and will see Mr.Owen Fitzgerald at Desmond Court at two o'clock to-morrow, if Mr.Owen Fitzgerald persists in demanding such an interview.

Lady Clara Desmond, however, wishes to express her opinion that it would be better avoided.
Desmond Court, Thursday evening.
The countess thought that this note was very cold and formal, and would be altogether conclusive; but, nevertheless, at about eleven o'clock that night there came another messenger from Hap House with another letter, saying that Owen would be at Desmond Court at two o'clock on the following day.
"He is very foolish; that is all I can say," said the countess.
All that night and all the next morning poor Clara was very wretched.
That she had been right to give up a suitor who lived such a life as Owen Fitzgerald lived she could not doubt.

But, nevertheless, was she true in giving him up?
Had she made any stipulation as to his life when she accepted his love?
If he called her false, as doubtless he would call her, how would she defend herself?
Had she any defence to offer?
It was not only that she had rejected him, a poor lover; but she had accepted a rich lover! What could she say to him when he upbraided her for such sordid conduct?
And then as to her whistling him down the wind.

Did she wish to do that?
In what state did her heart stand towards him?
Might it not be that, let her be ever so much on her guard, she would show him some tenderness,--tenderness which would be treason to her present affianced suitor?
Oh, why had her mother desired her to go through such an interview as this! When two o'clock came Clara was in the drawing-room.