Lady Fitzgerald then explained to him, that Mr. Prendergast had returned to Dublin that afternoon, starting twenty-four hours earlier than he intended,--or, at any rate, than he had said that he intended. Having done his work there, he had felt that he would now only be in the way. And, moreover, though his work was done at Castle Richmond, other work in the same matter had still to be done in England. Mr. Prendergast had very little doubt as to the truth of Mollett's story;--indeed we may say he had no doubt; otherwise he would hardly have made it known to all that world round Castle Richmond. But nevertheless it behoved him thoroughly to sift the matter. He felt tolerably sure that he should find Mollett in London; and whether he did or no, he should be able to identify, or not to identify, that scoundrel with the Mr. Talbot who had hired Chevy Chase Lodge, in Dorsetshire, and who had undoubtedly married poor Mary Wainwright. "He left a kind message for you," said Lady Fitzgerald.--My readers must excuse me if I still call her Lady Fitzgerald, for I cannot bring my pen to the use of any other name. And it was so also with the dependents and neighbours of Castle Richmond, when the time came that the poor lady felt that she was bound publicly to drop her title. It was not in her power to drop it; no effort that she could make would induce those around her to call her by another name. "He bade me say," she continued, "that if your future course of life should take you to London, you are to go to him, and look to him as another father. He has no child of his own," he said, "and you shall be to him as a son." "I will be no one's son but yours,--yours and my father's," he said, again embracing her. And then, when, under his mother's eye, he had eaten and drank and made himself warm, he did go to his father and found both his sisters sitting there. They came and clustered round him, taking hold of his hands and looking up into his face, loving him, and pitying him, and caressing him with their eyes; but standing there by their father's bed, they said little or nothing. Nor did Sir Thomas say much;--except this, indeed, that, just as Herbert was leaving him, he declared with a faint voice, that henceforth his son should be master of that house, and the disposer of that property--"As long as I live!" he exclaimed with his weak voice; "as long as I live!" "No, father; not so." "Yes, yes! as long as I live. It will be little that you will have, even so--very little. But so it shall be as long as I live." Very little indeed, poor man, for, alas! his days were numbered.