I was now apparently close on the discovery which I had striven so many months to attain. But success had lost its zest. I put my letters down, and seemed to forget them all in thinking of the morning I had passed that very day. Nothing was real but the unreal presence, which had come like an evil blast across my bodily eyes, and burnt itself down upon my brain. Dinner came, and went away untouched. Early in the afternoon I walked to the farm-house. I found Mistress Clarke alone, and I was glad and relieved. She was evidently prepared to tell me all I might wish to hear.
'You asked me for Mistress Lucy's true name; it is Gisborne,' she began.
'Not Gisborne of Skipford?' I exclaimed, breathless with anticipation.
'The same,' said she, quietly, not regarding my manner. 'Her father is a man of note; although, being a Roman Catholic, he cannot take that rank in this country to which his station entitles him. The consequence is that he lives much abroad--has been a soldier, I am told.'
She shook her head. 'I never knew her,' said she. 'Lucy was about three years old when I was engaged to take charge of her. Her mother was dead.'
'But you know her name?--you can tell if it was Mary Fitzgerald?'
She looked astonished. 'That was her name. But, sir, how came you to be so well acquainted with it? It was a mystery to the whole household at Skipford Court. She was some beautiful young woman whom he lured away from her protectors while he was abroad. I have heard said he practised some terrible deceit upon her, and when she came to know it, she was neither to have nor to hold, but rushed off from his very arms, and threw herself into a rapid stream and was drowned. It stung him deep with remorse, but I used to think the remembrance of the mother's cruel death made him love the child yet dearer.'
I told her, as briefly as might be, of my researches after the descendant and heir of the Fitzgeralds of Kildoon, and added--something of my old lawyer spirit returning into me for the moment--that I had no doubt but that we should prove Lucy to be by right possessed of large estates in Ireland.
No flush came over her grey face; no light into her eyes. 'And what is all the wealth in the whole world to that poor girl?' she said. 'It will not free her from the ghastly bewitchment which persecutes her. As for money, what a pitiful thing it is; it cannot touch her.'