midnight
Would it not be well that he should answer them ? For many months of that year Clara Desmond had hardly spoken to him . Then , in the summer evening , as he and her brother would lie sprawling together on the banks of the little Desmond river , while the lad was talking of his fish , and his school , and his cricket club , she would stand by and listen , and so gradually she learned to speak . And the mother also would sometimes be there ; or else she would welcome Fitzgerald in to tea , and let him stay there talking as though they were all at home , till he would have to make a midnight ride of it before he reached Hap House . It seemed that no fear as to her daughter had ever crossed the mother 's mind ; that no idea had ever come upon her that her favoured visitor might learn to love the young girl with whom he was allowed to associate on so intimate a footing . Once or twice he had caught himself calling her Clara , and had done so even before her mother ; but no notice had been taken of it . In truth , Lady Desmond did not know her daughter , for the mother took her absolutely to be a child , when in fact she was a child no longer .