"Merely from having heard that man mention his own name. I also have come with the same tidings; and as I ask for no money for communicating them, you may believe them to be true on my telling." "What tidings?" asked Owen, with a frown, and an angry jerk in his voice. No remotest notion had yet come in upon his mind that there was any truth in the story that had been told him. He had looked upon it all as a lie, and had regarded Mollett as a sorry knave who had come to him with a poor and low attempt at raising a few pounds. And even now he did not believe. Mr. Prendergast's words had been too sudden to produce belief of so great a fact, and his first thought was that an endeavour was being made to fool him. "Those tidings which that man has told you," said Mr. Prendergast, solemnly. "That you should not have believed them from him shows only your discretion. But from me you may believe them. I have come from Castle Richmond, and am here as a messenger from Sir Thomas,--from Sir Thomas and from his son. When the matter became clear to them both, then it was felt that you also should be made acquainted with it." Owen Fitzgerald now sat down, and looked up into the lawyer's face, staring at him. I may say that the power of saying much was for the moment taken away from him by the words that he heard. What! was it really possible that that title, that property, that place of honour in the country was to be his when one frail old man should drop away? And then again was it really true that all this immeasurable misery was to fall--had fallen--upon that family whom he had once known so well? It was but yesterday that he had been threatening all manner of evil to his cousin Herbert; and had his threats been proved true so quickly? But there was no shadow of triumph in his feelings. Owen Fitzgerald was a man of many faults. He was reckless, passionate, prone to depreciate the opinion of others, extravagant in his thoughts and habits, ever ready to fight, both morally and physically, those who did not at a moment's notice agree with him. He was a man who would at once make up his mind that the world was wrong when the world condemned him, and who would not in compliance with any argument allow himself to be so. But he was not avaricious, nor cruel, nor self-seeking, nor vindictive. In his anger he could pronounce all manner of ill things against his enemy, as he had pronounced some ill things against Herbert; but it was not in him to keep up a sustained wish that those ill things should really come to pass. This news which he now heard, and which he did not yet fully credit, struck him with awe, but created no triumph in his bosom. He realized the catastrophe as it affected his cousins of Castle Richmond rather than as it affected himself.