"Where did you hear?" she said, with quick suspicion. "Well, mother, I would rather not have mentioned his name; but if you wish to know, from Underwood. I know you are prejudiced against him. Yes, it is prejudice, though I don't wonder at it. I care nothing for the fellow; but still it comes out, which is rather strange, that he knows these places, and a good deal about the Erradeens." "Is that, then," cried the mother quickly, "the reason of his being here?" "He never said so, nor have I asked him," answered Walter, with something of his old sullenness; but then he added--"The same thought has crossed my own mind, mother, and I shouldn't wonder if it were so." "Walter," she said, "a man like that can have but one motive--the desire to aggrandise himself. For heaven's sake, don't have anything to do with him; don't let him get an influence over you." "You must have a very poor opinion of me, mother," he said, in an aggrieved tone. She looked at him with a curious gaze, silenced, as it seemed. She loved him more than anything in the world, and thought of him above everything; and yet perhaps in that wrath with those we love which works like madness in the brain, it was true what he said--that she had a poor opinion of him. Extremes meet, as the proverb says. However, this was a mystery too deep for Walter to enter into. "Don't let us waste words about Underwood," he said. "I care nothing for the fellow; he is vulgar and presuming--as you always said." Partly, no doubt, this avowal was made with the intention of pleasing his mother; at the same time it proved the great moral effect of promotion in rank. Lord Erradeen saw with the utmost distinctness what Walter Methven had only glimpsed by intervals. And it is impossible to describe how this speech pleased Mrs. Methven. Her tired eyes began to shine, her heart to return to its brighter hopes. "The thing is, what arrangements you wish me to make," said Walter. "What are you going to do? I hear Mulmorrel is a handsome house, but it's November, and naturally it is colder in the north. Do you think you would care to go there now, or wait till the weather is better? It may want furnishing, for anything I know; and it appears we've got a little house in town." "Walter," she said, in a voice which was husky and tremulous, "before you enter upon all this--you must first think, my dear. Are you sure it will be for your comfort to have me with you at all? Wouldn't you rather be free, and make your own arrangements, and leave me--as I am?" "MOTHER?" the young man cried. He got up suddenly from where he was sitting beside her, and pushed away his chair, and stood facing her, with a sudden paleness and fiery eyes that seemed to dazzle her. He had almost kicked her footstool out of his way in his excitement and wounded feeling. "Do you mean to say you want to have nothing to do with me?" he said.