"Good-bye," said the countess, thinking that it might be as well that the interview should be ended. "But, Mr. Fitzgerald, you are very wet; and I fear that you are very cold. You had better take something before you go." Countess as she was she had no carriage in which she could send him home; no horse even on which he could ride. "Nothing, thank you, Lady Desmond," he said; and so, without offering her the courtesy of his hand he walked out of the room. He was very angry with her, as he tried to make the blood run quicker in his veins by hurrying down the avenue into the road at his quickest pace. So angry with her, that for a while, in his indignation, he almost forgot his father and his mother and his own family tragedy. That she should have wished to save her daughter from such a marriage might have been natural; but that she should have treated him so coldly, so harshly--without one spark of love or pity,--him, who to her had been so loyal during his courtship of her daughter! It was almost incredible to him. Was not his story one that would have melted the heart of a stranger--at which men would weep? He himself had seen tears in the eyes of that dry time-worn world-used London lawyer, as the full depth of the calamity had forced itself upon his heart. Yes, Mr. Prendergast had not been able to repress his tears when he told the tale; but Lady Desmond had shed no tears when the tale had been told to her. No soft woman's message had been sent to the afflicted mother on whom it had pleased God to allow so heavy a hand to fall. No word of tenderness had been uttered for the sinking father. There had been no feeling for the household which was to have been so nearly linked with her own. No. Looking round with greedy eyes for wealth for her daughter, Lady Desmond had found a match that suited her. Now that match no longer suited her greed, and she could throw from her without a struggle to her feelings the suitor that was now poor, and the family of the suitor that was now neither grand nor powerful. And then too he felt angry with Clara, though he knew that as yet, at any rate, he had no cause. In spite of what he had said and felt, he would imagine to himself that she also would be cold and untrue. "Let her go," he said to himself. "Love is worth nothing--nothing if it does not believe itself to be of more worth than everything beside. If she does not love me now in my misery--if she would not choose me now for her husband--her love has never been worthy the name. Love that has no faith in itself, that does not value itself above all worldly things, is nothing. If it be not so with her, let her go back to him."