“And what is that?”

“I had not intended, Fanny, to say what I have to say to you for some time, for I feel that different circumstances make it premature.  But I cannot bring myself to leave you without doing so;” and again he paused and walked on a little way in silence—­“and yet,” he continued, “I hardly know how to utter what I wish to say; or rather what I would wish to have said, were it not that I dread so much the answer you may make me.  Stop, Fanny, stop a moment; the seat is quite dry; sit down one moment.”

Fanny sat down in a little alcove which they had reached, considerably embarrassed and surprised.  She had not, however, the most remote idea of what he was about to say to her.  Had any other man in the world, almost, spoken to her in the same language, she would have expected an offer; but from the way in which she had always regarded her cousin, both heretofore, when she hardly knew him, and now, when she was on such affectionate terms with him, she would as soon have thought of receiving an offer from Lord Cashel as from his son.

“Fanny,” he said, “I told you before that I have my father’s warmest and most entire approval for what I am now going to do.  Should I be successful in what I ask, he will be delighted; but I have no words to tell you what my own feelings will be.  Fanny, dearest Fanny,” and he sat down close beside her—­“I love you better—­ah! how much better, than all the world holds beside.  Dearest, dearest Fanny, will you, can you, return my love?”

“Adolphus,” said Fanny, rising suddenly from her seat, more for the sake of turning round so as to look at him, than with the object of getting from him, “Adolphus, you are joking with me.”

“No, by heavens then,” said he, following her, and catching her hand; “no man in Ireland is this moment more in earnest:  no man more anxiously, painfully in earnest.  Oh, Fanny! why should you suppose that I am not so?  How can you think I would joke on such a subject?  No:  hear me,” he said, interrupting her, as she prepared to answer him, “hear me out, and then you will know how truly I am in earnest.”

“No, not a word further!” almost shrieked Fanny—­“Not a word more, Adolphus—­not a syllable; at any rate till you have heard me.  Oh, you have made me so miserable!” and Fanny burst into tears.

“I have spoken too suddenly to you, Fanny; I should have given you more time—­I should have waited till—­”

“No, no, no,” said Fanny, “it is not that—­but yes; what you say is true:  had you waited but one hour—­but ten minutes—­I should have told you that which would for ever have prevented all this.  I should have told you, Adolphus, how dearly, how unutterably I love another.”  And Fanny again sat down, hid her face in her handkerchief against the corner of the summer-house, and sobbed and cried as though she were broken-hearted:  during which time Kilcullen stood by, rather perplexed as to what he was to say next, and beginning to be very doubtful as to his ultimate success.