Mr. Richard Conseltine, junior, was not a young man of brilliant parts, but, like most intellectually slow people, he made up for the paucity of his ideas by the intensity with which he dwelt on those he possessed. He had made up his mind quite easily and naturally that his uncle’s belongings should come to him in their entirety along with the title. He had grown to early manhood in the unquestioning belief that such would be the case.

But now, to his amazement, he had learned of the real relationship existing between his uncle and the Squireen. Up to that moment, Mr. Conseltine had thought it well to keep the knowledge from his son.

The two boys had hated each other, almost at first sight, with a quiet instinctive ferocity as of cat and dog. In his sullen grudging fashion Richard detested all who were not subservient to his wishes and interests, and especially hated anybody who was his superior in matters in which he most desired to excel. Desmond, as bright and quick as he himself was lumpish and dull, compared with him to his disadvantage at every turn. The poor Squireen, who owned not a single acre of soil, and was dependent upon Richard’s uncle for his daily bread, for the clothes he wore, was the idol of the district. Mr. Richard Conseltine, the independent young gentleman of birth and means, was everywhere tacitly, and not unfrequently overtly, set at naught. In those exercises which are popular in all rural districts, and especially among the sport-loving people of Ireland, Desmond was easily Richard’s master. He was the best shot, rider, angler, boxer, dancer, and fly-fisherman of his years in the county. He was handsome in person, and had with all women, young or old, that serene and beautiful assurance which of all masculine qualities recommends itself most instantly to the feminine heart.

All women loved him, and did their best to spoil him. Every man and boy on the estate was his willing servant and accomplice in the freaks and frolics and breaches of discipline in which he delighted, confident that the simple excuse, ‘’Twas the Squireen that asked me,’ would be quite sufficient to calm the wrath of my lord or his agent, or even of the dreaded Mr. Peebles, before whom, it was popularly believed, even his lordship trembled.

Richard could not but contrast this willing and eager service with the frigid obedience which was paid to him as the future owner of the soil. Had he been other than he was, he might have found a lesson in the contrast, and have penetrated the simple secret of Desmond’s popularity, which lay more in his sunny good-temper, his quick sympathy, his courage and generosity, than in the physical superiorities which so galled his cousin’s envious mind.

Ideas, it has been said, were not common with Richard, but the evening of the events just recorded was made additionally memorable to him by the implanting of a new one in his mind. He had happened to pass on the terrace below the open window of the drawing-room during the conversation held between Lord Kilpatrick and the faithful Peebles. The window was open, and the calm evening air had brought one single utterance of the old servant’s distinctly to his ears.

‘There’s just a chance,’ the deliberate Scotch voice had said, ‘that Desmond, when he kens ye’re his father, will refuse to tak’ a shilling o’ your money.’

Now, the moment Richard was made aware of Desmond’s illegitimacy, the secret began to tremble at his lips. He longed to dash the insolent triumph of the nameless adventurer who diminished his chances of succession, and by every morsel he ate seemed to lessen the future possessions of the rightful heir. He was only restrained from insulting Desmond on the score of his birth by his father’s strenuous assurance that to touch on that matter might be to lose his uncle’s favour at once and for ever. Conseltine senior had impressed that belief on him very forcibly. Richard rolled the sweet morsel of insolence round his tongue a score of times, with a rich anticipation of the time when it should be safe to humiliate his adversary by full publicity.

Peebles’ words came to him as a veritable revelation. For just a minute the solution of the whole difficulty, so long sought, so ardently desired, seemed almost ludicrously easy. He had only to acquaint the Squireen with the truth in order to secure the even greater and much more solid pleasure of inheriting his uncle’s estate. Then a doubt came and chilled him. We are all apt to fancy that our neighbour’s conduct in any given conditions will closely resemble our own conduct under like circumstances. Richard knew, and—no criminal being ashamed of his own instincts—confessed to himself quite openly and with no embarrassment, that if he, in Desmond’s place, had learned the secret of his birth, the effects of the knowledge would certainly not be those foreshadowed by Peebles. Rather the contrary! The stain on his name would have been an added claim on the generosity of the father who had so wronged him. Still, a fiery-tempered fool like Desmond might think differently. Peebles’ words stuck in his mind, and returned during the night with a constant reiteration, keeping sleep at arm’s length. Again and again his clumsy imagination tried to realize the effects of the betrayal of the secret, until he determined to take the trouble to his father, and consult with him as to the best line of conduct to be followed.

He descended to the breakfast-table to find my lord and his father seated together there, attended by Peebles, but neither Desmond nor Dulcie was present. In answer to a remark on their absence from Kilpatrick, Peebles deposed to having heard them laughing and talking on the lawn at least three hours earlier, and suggested that they had gone on one of their eternal excursions. Breakfast was almost over when they appeared, flushed and radiant. Kilpatrick had shown some testiness in remarking their absence, but Dulcie’s good-morning kiss had quite dissipated his gloom, and he listened with a goodtempered smile to their chatter about the morning’s adventures.

‘Don’t forget to come to the study, Desmond,’ he said, as he rose and passed out on to the terrace with his newspaper.

‘All right, sir,’ said Desmond. Conseltine also withdrew, leaving the three young people together, Richard sitting apart, and scowling angrily at Dulcie and her companion, who ignored his presence completely.

‘Dulcie,’ he said suddenly, ‘won’t you come into the drawing-room and teach me that song? You promised, you know.’

‘Not now,’ said the girl, ‘I’m busy. I’ve got to go and look out my fishing-tackle.’

‘Are you going fishing?’ asked Richard. ‘Yes,’ said Desmond; ‘she’s going with me.’

‘I wasn’t addressing you,’ said Richard.

‘Thank you for the honour you do me in not addressing me!’ said Desmond quietly.

There was something in Richard’s manner which the lad could not define, something more than usually insolent and offensive.

‘I really think, Dulcie,’ said Richard, ‘that you might give us a little of your company now and then, instead of running all over the county like a madcap with all the tatterdemalions in the village. I wish we were back in Dublin, with civilized people about us.’

‘Really, Mr. Conseltine,’ said Dulcie quietly, but with a manner which marked her sense of the side-sneer at Desmond, ‘I can choose my society without your assistance.’

The lowering look which always rested on Richard’s heavy features deepened.

‘No, you can’t,’ he said roughly; ‘or, at all events, you don’t. You’re getting yourself talked about all over the county, wandering about like a girl off the hillside with any vagabond who——’

‘I beg your pardon,’ interrupted Desmond, with great smoothness of manner, but with a dangerous glitter in his eyes, ‘but civility costs nothing, Mr. Richard. Were you alluding to me at all?’

‘Well,’ said Richard, trying hard to revert to his usual manner of heavy insolence, but speaking angrily, ‘and what if I was?’

‘Why——’ returned Desmond, rising.

‘Don’t be afraid, Lady Dulcie, I’m not going to quarrel. If I’ve said or done anything to give offence to this kind, civil-spoken, amiable young gentleman, I’m willing and anxious to apologize. What’s my offence, sir?’

‘You hang too much about the Castle,’ said Richard. ‘I know his lordship encourages you, but you ought to know better than to presume on his good-nature.’

‘Don’t you think,’ said Desmond quietly, ‘that you might leave his lordship to say that?’

‘You’re not fit company for my cousin,’ cried Richard hotly.

Dulcie rose with an exclamation of anger, but Desmond laid his hand upon her arm, and she remained silent.

‘And don’t you think,’ continued Desmond again, ‘that you might leave that for your cousin to say? She hasn’t said it yet.’ ‘Said it!’ cried Dulcie, in a white heat of anger; ‘why should I say it? A gentleman is fit company for anybody.’

‘A gentleman!’ sneered Richard. ‘A gentleman! Yes, but you should be able to tell the difference between the real article and the counterfeit.’

‘Oh!’ said Desmond, quietly still, but with more keenly glittering eyes and a pulsating voice. ‘And I suppose I’m the counterfeit? Is that what you mean?’

‘That is just what I mean,’ returned Richard.

‘Then,’ said Desmond, ‘if Lady Dulcie will do us the honour to leave us to ourselves, or if you’ll kindly step out on the lawn, the counterfeit will give the real article a taste of his quality.’

‘Desmond!’ cried Dulcie.

‘All right, Lady Dulcie,’ said Desmond, soothing her with his hand, and keeping his eye on Richard’s face.

The girl let the endearing tone and action pass unregarded. They stung Richard to fury.

‘You beggar!’ he cried.

Desmond made a step towards him; Dulcie clung to him, beseeching him to be quiet.

‘Don’t be alarmed, now,’ said Desmond, with his Irish blood dancing in his veins, and his heart all aglow with love of battle. ‘We’re only going to have a small civil kind of a fight, just to see how real he is!’

Peebles, who had entered the room unobserved, overheard these last words, and came between the combatants, ‘Master Desmond,’ he said, ‘I’m surprised at ye. Ye’ll no’ disgrace his lordship’s house by brawling in it, as if ye were in a tap-room or a hillside shebeen?’

‘Stand out of the way, if you please, Mr. Peebles,’ said Desmond.

‘That I’ll no’ do,’ returned the old Scot. ‘Ye’ll just be a sensible lad, as I’ve always thought ye, and tell me what’s the trouble. You’re the calmest, Master Richard—what’s a’ the steer aboot?’

‘I warned that ruffian,’ said Richard, ‘to avoid my company. He retaliated, as you see, and——’

‘You insulted him cruelly!’ cried Dulcie, with a heaving breast, and a glitter of tears in her soft eyes. ‘Never mind him, Desmond—come away!’

‘Insult him!’ cried Richard. Peebles’ presence, and the near neighbourhood of his lordship, gave him some sense of security, and Dulcie’s obvious sympathy with the object of his antagonism enraged him beyond all control. ‘Insult him! By the powers! Ask him who and what he is, and then you’ll know what right he has to be in your company, or in the company of any young lady.’

The anger half faded from Desmond’s face, and gave way to something of a look of astonishment.

‘Who and what I am?’ he repeated. ‘Sure, I’m Desmond Macartney.’

Richard repeated the name, and gave a scornful laugh.

‘And who has anything to say against me? I’m as good a gentleman as yourself.’

‘That’s a lie,’ said Richard. ‘You’re a pauper, dependent on my uncle’s charity for bread.’

Peebles let out a slow growl of remonstrance and warning, through which Dulcie’s voice sounded like the clear note of a flute through the scraping of a violoncello.

‘For shame!’ she cried, her cheeks burning with a hot flush of generous indignation.

‘Shame!’ cried Richard. ‘If there’s any shame, it’s there!’ He pointed his finger straight at Desmond.

‘Hold your fool’s tongue!’ said Peebles gruffly.

‘I will speak!’ shouted Richard. ‘Everybody knows—he knows—that his mother was a common peasant woman, and that he is my uncle’s bastard!’

Desmond sprang past Peebles with a cry, and struck his traducer in the face.

‘Keep him off!’ cried Richard, white and reeling from the blow. ‘Curse you, Peebles, why don’t you keep him off?’

‘Ye fool!’ said Peebles, with angry contempt. ‘Ye pitiful, cowardly fool, ’twad serve ye right if he beat the life oot of your carcase!’

Desmond, blind with fury, had seized Richard by the throat.

‘Down on your knees!’ he cried.

‘Take back those words!’

Just then Kilpatrick’s gray face and trembling figure appeared at the room door—none but Peebles saw him.

‘Take them back!’ cried Desmond, raising his fist to strike again.

‘Let me go!’ cried Richard desperately.

Desmond’s hand slackened on his collar.

‘Speak!’ he cried. ‘Tell me, or I’ll strangle you! Is it the truth ye’ve told me? Is Lord Kilpatrick my father?’

‘Yes,’ cried Richard, ‘and you know it!’

Desmond released him, and fell back with a moan. Cur and coward as he knew the man to be, his words carried conviction. As by a lightning-flash, he read the meaning of a thousand details of his past life, which, thus illuminated, went to prove the truth.

‘My mother!’ he said. ‘My mother! No, no! Don’t say it—don’t say it! Don’t say it, for the love of God! I can’t bear it!’ He broke into a terrible sob.

‘Ye’re just the champion fool o’ my experience,’ said Peebles, as he passed Richard on his way to the door, to the frame of which Lord Kilpatrick was clinging, looking on the scene with haggard eyes.

‘You cad!’ said Dulcie, flinging the word at Richard like a missile.

‘Peebles! Desmond! What’s all this?’ cried his lordship.

‘The secret’s out, my lord,’ said Peebles. ‘The poor lad knows he’s your son.’

Kilpatrick looked with a ghastly face towards Desmond, who glared back at him like one turned to stone.

‘Uncle,’ cried Dulcie, ‘speak to him. Tell him it is not true.’

‘It is true,’ said Kilpatrick hoarsely.

Desmond, my boy, my son, speak to me!’

‘You!’’ said Desmond. ‘You—you are my father?’

Lord Kilpatrick tottered into the room and fell into a chair.

‘And my mother,’ said Desmond—‘my mother? What of her?’

‘She died, long years ago,’ said his lordship.

‘Who was she? Speak!’ cried Desmond—‘speak! I must know!’

‘She was named Moya Macartney,’ said Kilpatrick. ‘She was—she——’

‘She was not your wife?’ said the boy. ‘Then I am—I am what he called me!’

‘Convention!’ cried Kilpatrick—‘mere convention! I acknowledge you as my son. Who will dare to point at you? Take witness, all of you!’ he cried, rising from his seat, ‘Desmond Macartney is my son. Those who will receive him and treat him as such are welcome here. Those who will not, let them go their ways.’

‘Uncle!’ cried Dulcie, ‘God bless you! Desmond——’

‘Hush, Lady Dulcie!’ cried Desmond. ‘Don’t speak to me now, or my heart will break. I was too happy to-day,’ he said brokenly; ‘I might have known that trouble was to come.’

Kilpatrick made a movement towards him.

‘Keep back!’ said Desmond. ‘Don’t come near me! I’m her son, not yours. I’ll never eat your bread, or call you father.’

So saying, he pushed his way past Peebles, who sought in vain to restrain him, and with one wild glance at the assembled group, rushed from the room and ran like a death-struck deer from Kilpatrick Castle.