'Oh! very frank.' He would not take her little jokes, nor understand her little prettinesses. That he was a man not prone to joking she knew well, but still it went against the grain with her to find that he was so very hard in his replies to her attempts.

It was not easy for Clara to carry on the conversation after this, so she proposed that they should go upstairs into the drawing-room. Such a change even as that would throw them into a different way of talking, and prevent the necessity of any further immediate allusion to Will Belton. For Clara was aware, though she hardly knew why, that her frankness to her future husband had hardly been successful, and she regretted that she had on this occasion mentioned her cousin's name. They went upstairs and again sat themselves in chairs over the fire; but for a while conversation did not seem to come to them freely. Clara felt that it was now Captain Aylmer's turn to begin, and Captain Aylmer felt that he wished he could read the newspaper. He had nothing in particular that he desired to say to his lady-love. That morning, as he was shaving himself, he had something to say that was very particular as to which he was at that moment so nervous, that he had cut himself slightly through the trembling of his hand. But that had now been said, and he was nervous no longer. That had now been said, and the thing settled so easily, that he wondered at his own nervousness. He did not know that there was anything that required much further immediate speech. Clara had thought somewhat of the time which might be proposed for their marriage, making some little resolves, with which the reader is already acquainted; but no ideas of this kind presented themselves to Captain Aylmer. He had asked his cousin to be his wife, thereby making good his promise to his aunt. There could be no further necessity for pressing haste. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.

It is not to be supposed that the thriving lover actually spoke to himself in such language as that or that he confessed to himself that Clara Amedroz was an evil to him rather than a blessing. But his feelings were already so far tending in that direction, that he was by no means disposed to make any further promise, or to engage himself in closer connexion with matrimony by the mention of any special day. Clara, finding that her companion would not talk without encouragement from her, had to begin again, and asked all those natural questions about his family, his brother, his sister, his home habits, and the old house in Yorkshire, the answers to which must be so full of interest to her. But even on these subjects he was dry, and in-disposed to answer with the full copiousness of free communication which she desired. And at last there came a question and an answer a word or two on one side, and then a word or two on the other, from which Clara got a wound which was very sore to her.

'I have always pictured to myself,' she said 'your mother as a woman who has been very handsome.'

'She is still a handsome woman, though she is over sixty.'

'Tall, I suppose?'

'Yes, tall, and with something of of what shall I say dignity, about her.'

'She is not grand, I hope?'

'I don't know what you call grand.'

'Not grand in a bad sense I'm sure she is not that. But there are some ladies who seem to stand so high above the level of ordinary females as to make us who are ordinary quite afraid of them.'

'My mother is certainly not ordinary,' said Captain Aylmer.

'And I am,' said Clara, laughing. 'I wonder what she'll say to me or, rather, what she will think of me.' Then there was a moment's silence, after which Clara, still laughing, went on. 'I see, Fred, that you have not a word of encouragement to give me about your mother.'

'She is rather particular,' said Captain Aylmer.

Then Clara drew herself up, and ceased to laugh. She had called herself ordinary with that half-insincere depreciation of self which is common to all of us when we speak of our own attributes, but which we by no means intend that they who hear us shall accept as strictly true, or shall re-echo as their own approved opinions. But in this instance Captain Aylmer, though he had not quite done that, had done almost as bad.

'Then I suppose I had better keep out of her way,' said Clara, by no means laughing as she spoke.

'Of course when we are married you must go and see her.'

'You do not, at any rate, promise me a very agreeable visit, Fred. But I dare say I shall survive it. After all, it is you that I am to marry, and not your mother; and as long as you are not majestic to me, I need not care for her majesty.'

'I don't know what you mean by majesty.'

'You must confess that you speak of her as of something very terrible.'

'I say that she is particular and so she is. And as my respect for her opinion is equal to my affection for her person, I hope that you will make a great effort to gain her esteem.'

'I never make any efforts of that kind. If esteem doesn't come without efforts it isn't worth having.'

'There I disagree with you altogether but I especially disagree with you as you are speaking about my mother, and about a lady who is to become your own mother-in-law. I trust that you will make such efforts, and that you will make them successfully. Lady Aylmer is not a woman who will give you her heart at once, simply because you have become her son's wife. She will judge you by your own qualities and will not scruple to condemn you should she see cause.'

Then there was a longer silence, and Clara's heart was almost in rebellion even on this, the first day of her engagement. But she quelled her high spirit, and said no further word about Lady Aylmer. Nor did she speak again till she had enabled herself to smile as she spoke.

'Well, Fred,' she said, putting her hand upon his arm, 'I'll do my best, and woman can do no more. And now I'll say good-night, for I must pack for tomorrow's journey before I go to bed.' Then he kissed her with a cold, chilling kiss and she left him for the night.



CHAPTER XII

MISS AMEDROZ RETURNS HOME

Clara was to start by a train leaving Perivale at eight on the following morning, and therefore there was not much time for conversation before she went. During the night she had endeavoured so to school herself as to banish from her breast all feelings of anger against her lover, and of regret as regarded herself. Probably, as she told herself, she had made more of what he had said than he had intended that she should do; and then, was it not natural that he should think much of his mother, and feel anxious as to the way in which she might receive his wife. As to that feeling of anger on her own part, she did get quit of it; but the regret was not to be so easily removed. It was not only what Captain Aylmer had said about his mother that clung to her, doing much to quench her joy; but there had been a coldness in his tone to her throughout the evening which she recognized almost unconsciously, and which made her heart heavy in spite of the joy which she repeatedly told herself ought to be her own. And she also felt though she was not clearly aware that she did so that his manner towards her had become less affectionate, less like that of a lover, since the honest tale she had told him of her own early love for him. She should have been less honest, and more discreet; less bold, and more like in her words to the ordinary run of women. She had known this as she was packing last night, and she told herself that it was so as she was dressing on this her last morning at Perivale. That frankness of hers had not been successful, and she regretted that she had not imposed on herself some little reticence or even a little of that coy pretence of indifference which is so often used by ladies when they are wooed. She had been boldly honest, and had found her honesty to be bad policy. She thought, at least, that she had found its policy to be bad. Whether in truth it may not have been very good have been the best policy in the world tending to give her the first true intimation which she had ever yet received of the real character of the man who was now so much to her that is altogether another question.

But it was clearly her duty to make the best of her present circumstances, and she went down-stairs with a smiling face and with pleasant words on her tongue. When she entered the breakfast-room Captain Aylmer was there; but Martha was there also, and her pleasant words were received indifferently in the presence of the servant. When the old woman was gone, Captain Aylmer assumed a grave face, and began a serious little speech which he had prepared. But he broke down in the utterance of it, and was saying things very different from what he had intended before he had completed it.

'Clara,' he began, 'what occurred between us yesterday is a source of great satisfaction to me.'

'I am glad of that, Frederick,' said she, trying to be a little less serious than her lover.

'Of very great satisfaction,' he continued; 'and I cannot but think that we were justified by the circumstances of our position in forgetting for a time the sad solemnity of the occasion. When I remember that it was but the day before yesterday that I followed my dear old aunt to the grave, I am astonished to think that yesterday I should have made an offer of marriage.'

What could be the good of his talking in this strain? Clara, too, had had her own misgivings on the same subject little qualms of conscience that had come to her as she remembered her old friend in the silent watches of the night; but such thoughts were for the silent watches, and not for open expression in the broad daylight. But he had paused, and she must say something.

'One's excuse to oneself is this that she would have wished it so.'

'Exactly. She would have wished it. Indeed she did wish it, and therefore—' He paused in what he was saying, and felt himself to be on difficult ground. Her eye was full upon him, and she waited for a moment or two as though expecting that he would finish his words. But as he did not go on, she finished them for him.

'And therefore you sacrificed your own feelings.' Her heart was becoming sore, and she was unable to restrain the utterance of her sarcasm.

'Just so,' said he; 'or, rather, not exactly that. I don't mean that I am sacrificed; for, of course, as I have just now said, nothing as regards myself can be more satisfactory. But yesterday should have been a solemn day to us; and as it was not—'

'I thought it very solemn.'

'What I mean is that I find an excuse in remembering that I was doing what she asked me to do.'

'What she asked you to do, Fred?'

'What I had promised, I mean.'

'What you had promised? I did not hear that before.' These last words were spoken in a very low voice, but they went direct to Captain Aylmer's ears.

'But you have heard me declare,' he said, 'that as regards myself nothing could be more satisfactory.'

'Fred,' she said, 'listen to me for a moment. You and I engaged ourselves to each other yesterday as man and wife.'

'Of course we did.'

'Listen to me, dear Fred. In doing that there was nothing in my mind unbefitting the sadness of the day. Even in death we must think of life, and if it were well for you and me that we should be together it would surely have been but a foolish ceremony between us to have abstained from telling each other that it would be so because my aunt had died last week. But it may be, and I think it is the case, that the feelings arising from her death have made us both too precipitate.'

'I don't understand how that can be.'

'You have been anxious to keep a promise made to her, without considering sufficiently whether in doing so you would secure your own happiness; and I—'

'I don't know about you, but as regards myself I must be considered to be the best judge.'

'And I have been too much in a hurry in believing that which I wished to believe.'

'What do you mean by all this, Clara?'

'I mean that our engagement shall be at an end; not necessarily so for always. But that as an engagement binding us both, it shall for the present cease to exist. You shall be again free—'

'But I don't choose to be free.'

'When you think of it you will find it best that it should be so. You have performed your promise honestly, even though at a sacrifice to yourself. Luckily for you for both of us, I should say the full truth has come out; and we can consider quietly what will be best for us to do, independently of that promise. We will part, therefore, as dear friends but not as engaged to each other as man and wife.'

'But we are engaged, and I will not hear of its being broken.'

'A lady's word, Fred, is always the most potential before marriage; and you must therefore yield to me in this matter. I am sure your judgment will approve of my decision when you think of it. There shall be no engagement between us. I shall consider myself quite free free to do as I please altogether; and you, of course, will be free also.'

'If you please, of course it must be so.'

'I do please, Fred.'

'And yesterday, then, is to go for nothing.'

'Not exactly. It cannot go for nothing with me. I told you too many of my secrets for that. But nothing that was done or said yesterday is to be held as binding upon either of us.'

'And you made up your mind to that last night?'

'It is at any rate made up to that now. Come I shall have to go without my breakfast if I do not eat it at once. Will you have your tea now, or wait and take it comfortably when I am gone?'

Captain Aylmer breakfasted with her, and took her to the station, and saw her off with all possible courtesy and attention, and then he walked back by himself to his own great house in Perivale. Not a word more had been said between him and Clara as to their engagement, and he recognized it as a fact that he was no longer bound to her as her future husband. Indeed, he had no power of not recognizing the fact, so decided had been her language, and so imperious her manner It had been of no avail that he had said that the engagement should stand. She had told him that her voice was to be the more potential, and he had felt that it was so. Well might it not be best for him that it should be so? He had kept his promise to his aunt, and bad done all that lay in his power to make Clara Amedroz his wife. If she chose to rebel against her own good fortune simply because he spoke to her a few words which seemed to him to be fitting, might it not be well for him to take her at her word?

Such were his first thoughts; but as the day wore on with him, something more generous in his nature came to his aid, and something also that was akin to real love. Now that she was no longer his own, he again felt a desire to have her. Now that there would be again something to be done in winning her, he was again stirred by a man's desire to do that something. He ought not to have told her of the promise. He was aware that what he had said on that point had been dropped by him accidentally, and that Clara's resolution after that had not been unnatural. He would, therefore, give her another chance, and resolved before he went to bed that night that he would allow a fortnight to pass away, and would then write to her, renewing his offer with all the strongest declarations of affection which he would be enabled to make.

Clara on her way home was not well satisfied with herself or with her position. She had had great joy, during the few hours of joy which had been hers, in thinking of the comfort which her news would give to her father. He would be released from all further trouble on her account by the tidings which she would convey to him by the tidings which she had intended to convey to him. But now the story which she would have to tell would by no means be comfortable. She would have to explain to him that her aunt had left no provision for her, and that would be the beginning and the end of her story. As for those conversations about the fifteen hundred pounds of them she would say nothing. When she reflected on what had taken place between herself and Captain Aylmer she was more resolved than ever that she would not touch any portion of that money or of any money that should come from him. Nor would she tell her father anything of the marriage engagement which had been made on one day and unmade on the next. Why should she add to his distress by showing him what good things might have been hers had she only had the wit to keep them? No; she would tell her father simply of the will, and then comfort him in his affliction as best she might.

As regarded her position with Captain Aylmer, the more she thought of it the more sure she became that everything was over in that quarter. She had, indeed, told him that such need not necessarily be the case,—but this she had done in her desire at the moment to mitigate the apparent authoritativeness of her own decision, rather than with any idea of leaving the matter open for further consideration. She was sure that Captain Aylmer would be glad of a means of escape, and that he would not again place himself in the jeopardy which the promise exacted from him by his aunt had made so nearly fatal to him. And for herself, though she still loved the man,—so loved him that she lay back in the corner of her carriage weeping behind her veil as she thought of what she had lost,—still she would not take him, though he should again press his suit upon her with all the ardour at his command. No, indeed. No man should ever be made to regard her as a burden imposed upon him by an extorted promise! What;—let a man sacrifice himself to a sense of duty on her behalf! And then she repeated the odious words to herself, till she came to think that it had fallen from his lips and not from her own.

In writing to her father from Perivale, she had merely told him of Mrs Winterfield's death and of her own intended return. At the Taunton station she met the well-known old fly and the well-known old driver, and was taken home in the accustomed manner. As she drew nearer to Belton the sense of her distress became stronger and stronger, till at last she almost feared to meet her father. What could she say to him when he should repeat to her, as he would be sure to do, his lamentation as to her future poverty?

On arriving at the house she learned that he was upstairs in his bedroom. He had been ill, the servant said, and though he was not now in bed, he had not come down-stairs. So she ran up to his room, and finding him seated in an old arm-chair by the fire-side, knelt down at his feet, as she took his hand and asked him as to his health.

'What has Mrs Winterfield done for you in her will?' These were the first words he spoke to her.

'Never mind about wills now, papa. I want you to tell me of yourself.'

'Nonsense, Clara. Answer my question.'

'Oh, papa, I wish you would not think so much about money for me.'

'Not think about it? Why am I not to think about it? What else have I got to think of? Tell me at once, Clara, what she has done. You ought to have written to me directly the will was made known.'

There was no help for her, and the terrible word must be spoken. 'She has left her property to Captain Aylmer, papa; and I must say that I think she is right.'

'You do not mean everything?'

'She has provided for her servants.'

'And has made no provision for you?'

'No, papa.'

'Do you mean to tell me that she has left you nothing, absolutely nothing?' The old man's manner was altogether altered as he asked the question; and there came over his face so unusual a look of energy,—of the energy of anger,—that Clara was frightened, and knew not how to answer him with that tone of authority which she was accustomed to use when she found it necessary to exercise control over him. 'Do you mean to say that there is nothing,—nothing?' And as he repeated the question he pushed her away from his knees and stood up with an effort, leaning against the back of his chair.

'Dear papa, do not let this distress you.'

'But is it so? Is there in truth nothing?'

'Nothing, papa. Remember that she was not really my aunt.'

'Nonsense, child! nonsense! How can you talk such trash to me as that? And then you tell me not to distress myself! I am to know that you will be a beggar in a year or two probably in a few months and that is not to distress me! She has been a wicked woman!'

'Oh, papa, do not say that.'

'A wicked woman. A very wicked woman. It is always so with those who pretend to be more religious than their neighbours. She has been a very wicked woman, alluring you into her house with false hopes.'

'No, papa no; I must contradict you. She had given me no grounds for such hope.'

'I say she had even though she may not have made a promise. I say she had. Did not everybody think that you were to have her money?'

'I don't know what people may have thought. Nobody has had any right to think about it at all.'

'That is nonsense, Clara. You know that I expected it that you expected it yourself.'

'No no, no!'

'Clara how can you tell me that?'

'Papa, I knew that she intended to leave me nothing. She told me so when I was there in the spring.'

'She told you so?'

'Yes, papa. She told me that Frederic Aylmer was to have all her property. She explained to me everything that she meant to do, and I thought that she was right.'

'And why was not I told when you came home?'

'Dear papa!'

'Dear papa, indeed. What is the meaning of dear papa? Why have I been deceived?'

'What good could I do by telling you? You could not change it.'

'You have been very undutiful; and as for her, her wickedness and cruelty shock me shock me. They do, indeed. That she should have known your position, and had you with her always and then have made such a will as that! Quite heartless! She must have been quite heartless.'

Clara now began to find that she must in justice to her aunt's memory tell her father something more. And yet it would be very difficult to tell him anything that would not bring greater affliction upon him, and would not also lead her into deeper trouble. Should it come to pass that her aunt's intention with reference to the fifteen hundred pounds was mentioned, she would be subjected to an endless persecution as to the duty of accepting that money from Captain Aylmer. But her present feelings would have made her much prefer to beg her bread upon the roads than accept her late lover's generosity. And then again, how could she explain to her father Mrs Winterfield's mistake about her own position without seeming to accuse her father of having robbed her? But nevertheless she must say something, as Mr Amedroz continued to apply that epithet of heartless to Mrs Winterfield, going on with it in a low droning tone, that was more injurious to Clara's ears than the first full energy of his anger.

'Heartless quite heartless shockingly heartless shockingly heartless!'

'The truth is, papa,' Clara said at last, 'that when my aunt told me about her will, she did not know but what I had some adequate provision from my own family.'

'Oh, Clara!'

'That is the truth, papa for she explained the whole thing to me. I could not tell her that she was mistaken, and thus ask for her money.'

'But she knew everything about that poor wretched boy.' And now the father dropped back into his chair, and buried his face in his hands.

When he did this Clara again knelt at his feet. She felt that she had been cruel, and that she had defended her aunt at the cost of her own father. She had, as it were, thrown in his teeth his own imprudence, and twitted him with the injuries which he had done to her. 'Papa,' she said, 'dear papa, do not think about it at all. What is the use? After all, money is not everything. I care nothing for money. If you will only agree to banish the subject altogether, we shall be so comfortable.'

'How is it to be banished?'

'At any rate we need not speak of it. Why should we talk on a subject which is simply uncomfortable, and which we cannot mend?'

'Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!' And now he swayed himself backwards and forwards in his chair, bewailing his own condition and hers, and his past imprudence, while the tears ran down his checks. She still knelt there at his feet, looking up into his face with loving, beseeching eyes, praying him to be comforted, and declaring that all would still be well if he would only forget the subject, or, at any rate, cease to speak of it. But still he went on wailing, complaining of his lot as a child complains, and refusing all consolation. 'Yes; I know,' said he, 'it has all been my fault. But how could I help it? What was I to do?'

'Papa, nobody has said that anything was your fault; nobody has thought so.'

'I never spent anything on myself—never, never; and yet,—and yet,—and yet—!'

'Look at it with more courage, papa. After all, what harm will it be if I should have to go out and earn my own bread like any other young woman? I am not afraid.'

At last he wept himself into an apathetic tranquillity, as though he had at present no further power for any of the energy of grief; and she left him while she went about the house and learned how things had gone on during her absence. It seemed, from the tidings which the servant gave her, that he had been ill almost since she had been gone. He had, at any rate, chosen to take his meals in his own room, and as far as was remembered, had not once left the house since she had been away. He had on two or three occasions spoken of Mr Belton, appearing to be anxious for his coming, and asking questions as to the cattle and the work that was still going on about the place; and Clara, when she returned to his room, tried to interest him again about her cousin. But he had in truth been too much distressed by the ill news as to Mrs Winterfield's will to be able to rally himself, and the evening that was spent up in his room was very comfortless to both of them. Clara had her own sorrows to bear as well as her father's, and could take no pleasant look out into the world of her own circumstances. She had gained her lover merely to lose him and had lost him under circumstances that were very painful to her woman's feeling. Though he had been for one night betrothed to her as her husband, he had never loved her. He had asked her to be his wife simply in fulfilment of a death-bed promise! The more she thought of it the more bitter did the idea of it become to her. And she could not also but think of her cousin. Poor Will! He, at any rate, had loved her, though his eagerness in love had been, as she told herself, but short-lived. As she thought of him, it seemed but the other day that he had been with her up on the rock in the park but as she thought of Captain Aylmer, to whom she had become engaged only yesterday, and from whom she had separated herself only that morning, she felt that an eternity of time had passed since she had parted from him.

On the following day, a dull, dark, melancholy day, towards the end of November, she went out to saunter about the park, leaving her father still in his bedroom, and after a while made her way down to the cottage. She found Mrs Askerton as usual alone in the little drawing-room, sitting near the window with a book in her hand; but Clara knew at once that her friend had not been reading that she had been sitting there looking out upon the clouds, with her mind fixed upon things far away. The general cheerfulness of this woman had often been cause of wonder to Clara, who knew how many of her hours were passed in solitude; but there did occasionally come upon her periods of melancholy in which she was unable to act up to the settled rule of her life, and in which she would confess that the days and weeks and months were too long for her.

'So you are back,' said Mrs Askerton, as soon as the first greeting was over.

'Yes; I am back.'

'I supposed you would not stay there long after the funeral.'

'No; what good could I do?'

'And Captain Aylmer is still there, I suppose?'

'I left him at Perivale.'

There was a slight pause, as Mrs Askerton hesitated before she asked her next question. 'May I be told anything about the will?' she said.

'The weary will! If you knew how I hated the subject you would not ask me. But you must not think I hate it because it has given me nothing.'

'Given you nothing?'

'Nothing! But that does not make me hate it. It is the nature of the subject that is so odious. I have now told you all everything that there is to be told, though we were to talk for a week. If you are generous you will not say another word about it.'

'But I am so sorry.'

'There that's it. You won't perceive that the expression of such sorrow is a personal injury to me. I don't want you to be sorry.'

'How am I to help it?'

'You need not express it. I don't come pitying you for supposed troubles. You have plenty of money; but if you were so poor that you could eat nothing but cold mutton, I shouldn't condole with you as to the state of your larder. I should pretend to think that poultry and piecrust were plentiful with you.'

'No, you wouldn't, dear not if I were as dear to you as you are to me.'

'Well, then, be sorry; and let there be an end of it. Remember how much of all this I must of necessity have to go through with poor papa.'

'Ah, yes; I can believe that.'

'And he is so far from well. Of course you have not seen him since I have been gone.'

'No; we never see him unless he comes up to the gate there.' Then there was another pause for a moment. And what about Captain Aylmer?' asked Mrs Askerton.

'Well what about him?'

'He is the heir now?'

'Yes he is the heir.'

'And that is all?'

'Yes; that is all. What more should there be? The poor old house at Perivale will be shut up, I suppose.'

'I don't care about the old house much, as it is not to be your house.'

'No it is not to be my house certainly.'

'There were two ways in which it might have become yours.'

'Though there were ten ways, none of those ways have come my way,' said Clara.

'Of course I know that you are so close that though there were anything to tell you would not tell it.'

'I think I would tell you anything that was proper to be told; but now there is nothing proper or improper.'

'Was it proper or improper when Mr Belton made an offer to you as I knew he would do of course; as I told you that he would? Was that so improper that it could not be told?'

Clara was aware that the tell-tale colour in her face at once took from her the possibility of even pretending that the allegation was untrue, and that in any answer she might give she must acknowledge the fact. 'I do not think,' she said, 'that it is considered fair to gentlemen to tell such stories as that.'

'Then I can only say that the young ladies I have known are generally very unfair.'

'But who told you?'

'Who told me? My maid. Of course she got it from yours. Those things are always known.'

'Poor Will!'

'Poor Will, indeed. He is coming here again, I hear, almost immediately, and it needn't be "poor Will" unless you like it. But as for me, I am not going to be an advocate in his favour. I tell you fairly that I did not like what little I saw of poor Will.'

'I like him of all things.'

'You should teach him to be a little more courteous in his demeanour to ladies; that is all. I will tell you something else, too, about poor Will but not now. Some other day I will tell you something of your Cousin Will.'

Clara did not care to ask any questions as to this something that was to be told, and therefore took her leave and went away.



CHAPTER XIII

MR WILLIAM BELTON TAKES A WALK IN THE COUNTRY

Clara Amedroz had made one great mistake about her cousin, Will Belton, when she came to the conclusion that she might accept his proffered friendship without any apprehension that the friend would become a lover; and she made another, equally great, when she convinced herself that his love had been as short-lived as it had been eager. Throughout his journey back to Plaistow, he had thought of nothing else but his love, and had resolved to persevere, telling himself sometimes that he might perhaps be successful, and feeling sure at other times that he would encounter renewed sorrow and permanent disappointment but equally resolved in either mood that he would persevere. Not to persevere in pursuit of any desired object let the object be what it might was, to his thinking, unmanly, weak, and destructive of self-respect. He would sometimes say of himself, joking with other men, that if he did not succeed in this or that thing, he could never speak to himself again. To no man did he talk of his love in such a strain as this; but there was a woman to whom he spoke of it; and though he could not joke on such a matter, the purport of what he said showed the same feeling. To be finally rejected, and to put up with such rejection, would make him almost contemptible in his own eyes.

This woman was his sister, Mary Belton. Something has been already said of this lady, which the reader may perhaps remember. She was a year or two older than her brother, with whom she always lived, but she had none of those properties of youth which belonged to him in such abundance. She was, indeed, a poor cripple, unable to walk beyond the limits of her own garden, feeble in health, dwarfed in stature, robbed of all the ordinary enjoyments of life by physical deficiencies, which made even the task of living a burden to her. To eat was a pain, or at best a trouble. Sleep would not comfort her in bed, and weariness during the day made it necessary that the hours passed in bed should be very long. She was one of those whose lot in life drives us to marvel at the inequalities of human destiny, and to inquire curiously within ourselves whether future compensation is to be given.

It is said of those who are small and crooked-backed in their bodies, that their minds are equally cross-grained and their tempers as ungainly as their stature. But no one had ever said this of Mary Belton. Her friends, indeed, were very few in number; but those who knew her well loved her as they knew her, and there were three or four persons in the world who were ready at all times to swear that she was faultless. It was the great happiness of her life that among those three or four her own brother was the foremost. Will Belton's love for his sister amounted almost to veneration, and his devotion to her was so great, that in all the affairs of his life he was prepared to make her comfort one of his first considerations. And she, knowing this, had come to fear that she might be an embargo on his prosperity, and a stumbling-block in the way of his success. It had occurred to her that he would have married earlier in life if she had not been, as it were, in his way; and she had threatened him playfully,—for she could be playful,—that she would leave him if he did not soon bring a mistress to Plaistow Hall. 'I will go to uncle Robert,' she had said. Now uncle Robert was the clergyman in Lincolnshire of whom mention has been made, and he was among those two or three who believed in Mary Belton with an implicit faith,—as was also his wife. 'I will go to uncle Robert, Will, and then you will be driven to get a wife.'

'If my sister ever leaves my house, whether there be a wife in it or not,' Will had answered, 'I will never put trust in any woman again.'

Plaistow Manor-house or Hall was a fine brick mansion, built in the latter days of Tudor house architecture, with many gables and countless high chimneys very picturesque to the eye, but not in all respects comfortable as are the modern houses of the well-to-do squirearchy of England. And, indeed, it was subject to certain objectionable characteristics which in some degree justified the scorn which Mr Amedroz intended to throw upon it when he declared it to be a farm-house. The gardens belonging to it were large and excellent; but they did not surround it, and allowed the farm appurtenances to come close up to it on two sides. The door which should have been the front door, opening from the largest room in the house, which had been the hall and which was now the kitchen, led directly into the farm-yard. From the farther end of this farm-yard a magnificent avenue of elms stretched across the home pasture down to a hedge which crossed it at the bottom. That there had been a road through the rows of trees or, in other words, that there had in truth been an avenue to the house on that side was, of course, certain. But now there was no vestige of such road, and the front entrance to Plaistow Hall was by a little path across the garden from a modern road which had been made to run cruelly near to the house. Such was Plaistow Hall, and such was its mistress. Of the master, the reader, I hope, already knows so much as to need no further description.

As Belton drove himself home from the railway station late on that August night, he made up his mind that he would tell his sister all his story about Clara Amedroz. She had ever wished that he should marry, and now he had made his attempt. Little as had been her opportunity of learning the ways of men and women from experience in society, she had always seemed to him to know exactly what every one should do in every position of life. And she would be tender with him, giving him comfort even if she could not give him hope. Moreover Mary might be trusted with his secret; for Belton felt, as men always do feel, a great repugnance to have it supposed that his suit to a woman had been rejected. Women, when they have loved in vain, often almost wish that their misfortune should be known. They love to talk about their wounds mystically,—telling their own tales under feigned names, and extracting something of a bitter sweetness out of the sadness of their own romance. But a man, when he has been rejected,—rejected with a finality that is acknowledged by himself,—is unwilling to speak or hear a word upon the subject, and would willingly wash the episode out from his heart if it were possible.

But not on that his first night would he begin to speak of Clara Amedroz. He would not let his sister believe that his heart was too full of the subject to allow of his thinking of other matters. Mary was still up, waiting for him when he arrived, with tea, and cream, and fruit ready for him. 'Oh, Mary!' he said, 'why are you not in bed? You know that I would have come to you upstairs.' She excused herself, smiling, declaring that she could not deny herself the pleasure of being with him for half an hour on his first return from his travels. 'Of course I want to know what they are like,' she said.

'He is a nice-looking old man,' said Will 'and she is a nice-looking young woman.'

'That is graphic and short, at any rate.'

'And he is weak and silly, but she is strong and—and—and—'

'Not silly also, I hope?'

'Anything but that. I should say she is very clever.'

'I'm afraid you don't like her, Will.'

'Yes, I do.'

'Really?'

'Yes; really.'

'And did she take your coming well?'

'Very well. I think she is much obliged to me for going.'

'And Mr Amedroz?'

'He liked my coming too very much.'

'What after that cold letter?

'Yes, indeed. I shall explain it all by degrees. I have taken a lease of all the land, and I'm to go back at Christmas; and as to the old gentleman he'd have me live there altogether if I would.'

'Why, Will?'

'Is it not odd? I'm so glad I didn't make up my mind not to go when I got that letter. And yet I don't know.' These last words he added slowly, and in a low voice, and Mary at once knew that everything was not quite as it ought to be.

'Is there anything wrong, Will?'

'No, nothing wrong; that is to say, there is nothing to make me regret that I went. I think I did some good to them.'

'It was to do good to them that you went there.'

'They wanted to have some one near them who could be to them as one of their own family. He is too old too much worn out to be capable of managing things; and the people there were, of course, robbing him. I think I have put a stop to that.'

'And you are to go again at Christmas?'

'Yes; they can do without me at my uncle's, and you will be there. I have taken the land, and already bought some of the stock for it, and am going to buy more.'

'I hope you won't lose money, Will.'

'No not ultimately, that is. I shall get the place in good condition, and I shall have paid myself when he goes, in that way, if in no other. Besides, what's a little money? I owe it to them for robbing her of her inheritance.'

'You do not rob her, Will.'

'It is hard upon her, though.'

'Does she feel it hard?'

'Whatever may be her feelings on such a matter, she is a woman much too proud to show them.'

'I wish I knew whether you liked her or not.'

'I do like her I love her better than any one in the world; better even than you, Mary; for I have asked her to be my wife.'

'Oh, Will!'

'And she has refused me. Now you know the whole of it the whole history of what I have done while I have been away.' And he stood up before her, with his thumbs thrust into the arm-holes of his waistcoat, with something serious and almost solemn in his gait, in spite of a smile which played about his mouth.

'Oh, Will!'

'I meant to have told you, of course, Mary to have told you everything; but I did not mean to tell it to-night; only it has somehow fallen from me. Out of the full heart the mouth speaks, they say.'

'I never can like her if she refuses your love.'

'Why not? That is unlike you, Mary. Why should she be bound to love me because I love her?'

'Is there any one else, Will?'

'How can I tell? I did not ask her. I would not have asked her for the world, though I would have given the world to know.'

'And she is so very beautiful?'

'Beautiful! It isn't that so much though she is beautiful. But but I can't tell you why but she is the only girl that I ever saw who would suit me for a wife. Oh, dear!'

'My own Will!'

'But I'm not going to keep you up all night, Mary. And I'll tell you something else; I'm not going to break my heart for love. Arid I'll tell you something else again; I'm not going to give it up yet. I believe I've been a fool. Indeed, I know I've been a fool. I went about it just as if I were buying a horse, and had told the seller that that was my price he might take it or leave it. What right had I to suppose that any girl was to be had in that way; much less such a girl as Clara Amedroz?'

'It would have been a great match for her.'

'I'm not so sure of that, Mary. Her education has been different from mine, and it may well be that she should marry above me. But I swear I will not speak another word to you to-night. Tomorrow, if you're well enough, I'll talk to you all day.' Soon after that he did get her to go up to her room, though, of course, he broke that oath of his as to not speaking another word. After that he walked out by moonlight round the house, wandering about the garden and farm-yard, and down through the avenue, having in his own mind some pretence of the watchfulness of ownership, but thinking little of his property and much of his love. Here was a thing that he desired with all his heart, but it seemed to be out of his reach absolutely out of his reach. He was sick and weary with a feeling of longing sick with that covetousness wherewith Ahab coveted the vineyard of Naboth. What was the world to him if he could not have this thing on which he had set his heart? He had told his sister that he would not break his heart; and so much, he did not doubt, would be true. A man or woman with a broken heart was in his estimation a man or woman who should die of love; and he did not look for such a fate as that. But he experienced the palpable misery of a craving emptiness within his breast, and did believe of himself that he never could again be in comfort unless he could succeed with Clara Amedroz. He stood leaning against one of the trees, striking his hands together, and angry with himself at the weakness which had reduced him to such a state. What could any man be worth who was so little master of himself as he had now become?

After awhile he made his way back through the farm-yard, and in at the kitchen door, which he locked and bolted; and then, throwing himself down into a wooden armchair which always stood there, in the corner of the huge hearth, he took a short pipe from the mantelpiece, filled it with tobacco, and lighting it almost unconsciously, began to smoke with vehemence.

Plaistow Hall was already odious to him, and he longed to be back at Belton, which he had left only that morning. Yes, on that very morning she had brought to him his coffee, looking sweetly into his face so sweetly as she ministered to him. And he might then well have said one word more in pleading his suit, if he had not been too awkward to know what that word should be. And was it not his own awkwardness that had brought him to this state of misery? What right had he to suppose that any girl should fall in love with such a one as he at first sight without a moment's notice to her own heart? And then, when he had her there, almost in his arms, why had he let her go without kissing her? It seemed to him now that if he might have once kissed her, even that would have been a comfort to him in his present affliction. 'D——tion!' he said at last, as he jumped to his feet and kicked the chair on one side, and threw the pipe among the ashes. I trust it will be understood that he addressed himself, and not his lady-love, in this uncivil way 'D——tion!' Then when the chair had been well kicked out of his way, he took himself up to bed. I wonder whether Clara's heart would have been hardened or softened towards him had she heard the oath, and understood all the thoughts and motives which had produced it.

On the next morning poor Mary Belton was too ill to come down-stairs; and as her brother spent his whole day out upon the farm, remaining among reapers and wheat stacks till nine o'clock in the evening, nothing was said about Clara on that day. Then there came a Sunday, and it was a matter of course that the subject of which they both were thinking should be discussed. Will went to church, and, as was their custom on Sundays, they dined immediately on his return. Then, as the afternoon was very warm, he took her out to a favourite seat she had in the garden, and it became impossible that they could longer abstain.

'And you really mean to go again at Christmas?' she asked.

'Certainly I shall I promised.'

'Then I am sure you will.'

'And I must go from time to time because of the land I have taken. Indeed there seems to be an understanding that I am to manage the property for Mr Amedroz.'

'And does she wish you to go?'

'Yes she says so.'

'Girls, I believe, think sometimes that men are indifferent in their love. They suppose that a man can forget it at once when he is not accepted, and that things can go on just as before.'

'I suppose she thinks so of me,' said Belton wofully.

'She must either think that, or else be willing to give herself the chance of learning to like you better.'

'There's nothing of that, I'm sure. She's as true as steel.'

'But she would hardly want you to go there unless she thought you might overcome either your love or her indifference. She would not wish you to be there that you might be miserable.'

'Before I had asked her to be my wife I had promised to be her brother. And so I will, if she should ever want a brother. I am not going to desert her because she will not do what I want her to do, or be what I want her to be. She understands that. There is to be no quarrel between us.'

'But she would be heartless if she were to encourage you to be with her simply for the assistance you may give her, knowing at the same time that you could not be happy in her presence.'

'She is not heartless.'

'Then she must suppose that you are.'

'I dare say she doesn't think that I care much about it. When I told her, I did it all of a heap, you see; and I fancy she thought I was just mad at the time.'

'And did you speak about it again?'

'No; not a word. I shouldn't wonder if she hadn't forgotten it before I went away.'

'That would be impossible.'

'You wouldn't say so if you knew how it was done. It was all over in half an hour; and she had given me such an answer that I thought I had no right to say anything more about it. The morning when I left her she did seem to be kinder.'

'I wish I knew whether she cares for any one else.'

'Ah! I so often think of that. But I couldn't ask her, you know. I had no right to pry into her secrets. When I came away, she got up to see me off; and I almost felt tempted to carry her into the gig and drive her off.'

'I don't think that would have done, Will.'

'I don't suppose anything will do. We all know what happens to the child who cries for the top brick of the chimney. The child has to do without it. The child goes to bed and forgets it; but I go to bed and can't forget it.'

'My poor Will!'

Then he got up and shook himself, and stalked about the garden always keeping within a few yards of his sister's chair and carried on a strong battle within his breast, struggling to get the better of the weakness which his love produced, though resolved that the love itself should be maintained.

'I wish it wasn't Sunday,' he said at last, 'because then I could go and do something. If I thought that no one would see me, I'd fill a dung-cart or two, even though it is Sunday. I'll tell you what I'll go and take a walk as far as Denvir Sluice; and I'll be hack to tea. You won't mind?'

'Denvir Sluice is eight miles off.'

'Exactly I'll be there and back in something over three hours.'

'But, Will there's a broiling sun.'

'It will do me good. Anything that will take something out of me is what I want. I know I ought to stay and read to you; but I couldn't do it. I've got the fidgets inside, if you know what that means. To have the big hay-rick on fire, or something of that sort, is what would do me most good.'

Then he started, and did walk to Denvir Sluice and back in three hours. The road from Plaistow Hall to Denvir Sluice was not in itself interesting. It ran through a perfectly flat country, without a tree. For the greater part of the way it was constructed on the top of a great bank by the side of a broad dike, and for five miles its course was straight as a line. A country walk less picturesque could hardly be found in England. The road, too, was very dusty, and the sun was hot above Belton's head as he walked. But nevertheless, he persevered, going on till he struck his stick against the waterfall which was called Denvir Sluice, and then returned not once slackening his pace, and doing the whole distance at a rate somewhat above five miles an hour. They used to say in the nursery that cold pudding is good to settle a man's love; but the receipt which Belton tried was a walk of sixteen miles, along a dusty road, after dinner, in the middle of an August day.

I think it did him some good. When he got back he took a long draught of home-brewed beer, and then went up stairs to dress himself.

'What a state you are in,' Mary said to him when he showed himself for a moment in the sitting-room.

'I did it from milestone to milestone in eleven minutes, backwards and forwards, all along the five-mile reach.'

Then Mary knew from his answer that the exercise had been of service to him, perceiving that he had been able to take an interest in his own prowess as a walker.

'I only hope you won't have a fever,' she said.

'The people who stand still are they who get fevers,' he answered. 'Hard work never does harm to any one. If John Bowden would walk his five miles an hour on a Sunday afternoon he wouldn't have the gout so often.'

John Bowden was a neighbour in the next parish, and Mary was delighted to find that her brother could take a pride in his performance.

By degrees Miss Belton began to know with some accuracy the way in which Will had managed his affairs at Belton Castle, and was enabled to give him salutary advice.

'You see, Will,' she said, 'ladies are different from men in this, that they cannot allow themselves to be in love so suddenly.'

'I don't see how a person is to help it. It isn't like jumping into a river, which a person can do or not, just as he pleases.'

'But I fancy it is something like jumping into a river, and that a person can help it. What the person can't help is being in when the plunge has once been made.'

'No, by George! There's no getting out of that river.'

'And ladies don't take the plunge till they've had time to think what may come after it. Perhaps you were a little too sudden with our Cousin Clara?'

'Of course I was. Of course I was a fool, and a brute too.'

'I know you were not a brute, and I don't think you were a fool; but yet you were too sudden. You see a lady cannot always make up her mind to love a man, merely because she is asked all in a moment. She should have a little time to think about it before she is called upon for an answer.'

'And I didn't give her two minutes.'

'You never do give two minutes to anyone do you, Will? But you'll be back there at Christmas, and then she will have had time to turn it over in her mind.'

'And you think that I may have a chance?'

'Certainly you may have a chance.'

'Although she was so sure about it?'

'She spoke of her own mind and her own heart as she knew them then. But it depends chiefly on this, Will whether there is any one else. For anything we know, she may be engaged now.'

'Of course she may.' Then Belton speculated on the extreme probability of such a contingency; arguing within his own heart that of course every unmarried man who might see Clara would want to marry her, and that there could not but be some one whom even she would be able to love.

When he had been home about a fortnight, there came a letter to him from Clara, which was a great treasure to him. In truth, it simply told him of the completion of the cattle-shed, of her father's health, and of the milk which the little cow gave; but she signed herself his affectionate cousin, and the letter was very gratifying to him. There were two lines of a postscript, which could not but flatter him: 'Papa is so anxious for Christmas, that you may be here again and so, indeed, am I also.' Of course it will be understood that this was written before Clara's visit to Perivale, and before Mrs Winterfield's death. Indeed, much happened in Clara's history between the writing of that letter and Will Belton's winter visit to the Castle.

But Christmas came at last, all too slowly for Will and he started on his journey. On this occasion he arranged to stay a week in London, having a lawyer there whom he desired to see; and thinking, perhaps, that a short time spent among the theatres might assist him in his love troubles.



CHAPTER XIV

MR WILLIAM BELTON TAKES A WALK IN LONDON

At the time of my story there was a certain Mr Green, a worthy attorney, who held chambers in Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn, much to the profit of himself and family and to the profit and comfort also of a numerous body of clients a man much respected in the neighbourhood of Chancery Lane, and beloved, I do not doubt, in the neighbourhood of Bushey, in which delightfully rural parish he was possessed of a genteel villa and ornamental garden. With Mr Green's private residence we shall, I believe, have no further concern; but to him at his chambers in Stone Buildings I must now introduce the reader of these memoirs. He was a man not yet forty years of age, with still much of the salt of youth about him, a pleasant companion as well as a good lawyer, and one who knew men and things in London, as it is given to pleasant clever fellows, such as Joseph Green, to know them. Now Mr Green and his father before him had been the legal advisers of the Amedroz family, and our Mr Joseph Green had had but a bad time of it with Charles Amedroz in the last years of that unfortunate young man's life. But lawyers endure these troubles, submitting themselves to the extravagances, embarrassments, and even villainy of the bad subjects among their clients' families, with a good-humoured patience that is truly wonderful. That, however, was all over now as regarded Mr Green and the Amedrozes, and he had nothing further to do but to save for the father what relics of the property he might secure. And he was also legal adviser to our friend Will Belton, there having been some old family connexion among them, and had often endeavoured to impress upon his old client at Belton Castle his own strong conviction that the heir was a generous fellow, who might be trusted in everything. But this had been taken amiss by the old squire, who, indeed, was too much disposed to take all things amiss and to suspect everybody. 'I understand,' he had said to his daughter. 'I know all about it. Belton and Mr Green have been dear friends always. I can't trust my own lawyer any longer.' In all which the old squire showed much ingratitude. It will, however, be understood that these suspicions were rife before the time of Belton's visit to the family estate.

Some four or five days before Christmas there came a visitor to Mr Green with whom the reader is acquainted, and who was no less a man than the Member for Perivale. Captain Aylmer, when Clara parted from him on the morning of her return to Belton Castle, had resolved that he would repeat his offer of marriage by letter. A month had passed by since then, and he had not as yet repeated it. But his intention was not altered. He was a deliberate man, who did not do such things quite as quickly as his rival, and who upon this occasion had thought it prudent to turn over more than once in his mind all that he proposed to do. Nor had he as yet taken any definite steps as to that fifteen hundred pounds which he had promised to Clara in her aunt's name, and which Clara had been, and was, so unwilling to receive. He had now actually paid it over, having purchased government stock in Clara's name for the amount, and had called upon Mr Green, in order that that gentleman, as Clara's lawyer, might make the necessary communication to her.

'I suppose there's nothing further to be done?' asked Captain Aylmer.

'Nothing further by me,' said the lawyer. 'Of course I shall write to her, and explain that she must make arrangements as to the interest. I am very glad that her aunt thought of her in her last moments.'

'Mrs Winterfield would have provided for her before, had she known that everything had been swallowed up by that unfortunate young man.'

'All's well that ends well. Fifteen hundred pounds are better than nothing.'

'Is it not enough?' said the captain, blushing.

'It isn't for me to have an opinion about that, Captain Aylmer. It depends on the nature of her claim; and that again depends on the relative position of the aunt and niece when they were alive together.'

'You are aware that Miss Amedroz was not Mrs Winterfield's niece?'

'Do not think for a moment that I am criticizing the amount of the legacy. I am very glad of it, as, without it, there was literally no provision,—no provision at all.'

'You will write to herself?'

'Oh yes, certainly to herself. She is a better man of business than her father and then this is her own, to do as she likes with it.'

'She can't refuse it, I suppose?'

'Refuse it!'

'Even though she did not wish to take it, it would be legally her property, just as though it had been really left by the will?'

'Well; I don't know. I dare say you could have resisted the payment. But that has been made now, and there seems to be an end of it.'

At this moment a clerk entered the room and handed a card to his employer. 'Here's the heir himself,' said Mr Green.

'What heir?

'Will Belton the heir of the property which Mr Amedroz holds.' Captain Aylmer had soon explained that he was not personally acquainted with Mr William Belton; but, having heard much about him, declared himself anxious to make the acquaintance. Our friend Will, therefore, was ushered into the room, and the two rivals for Clara's favour were introduced to each other. Each had heard much of the other, and each had heard of the other from the same person. But Captain Aylmer knew much more as to Belton than Belton knew in respect to him. Aylmer knew that Belton had proposed to Clara and had been rejected; and he knew also that Belton was now again going down to Somersetshire.

'You are to spend your Christmas, I believe, with our friends at Belton Castle?' said the captain.

'Yes and am now on my way there. I believe you know them also intimately.' Then there was some explanation as to the Winterfield connexion, a few remarks as to the precarious state of the old squire's health, a message or two from Captain Aylmer, which of course were of no importance, and the captain took his leave.

Then Green and Belton became very comfortably intimate in their conversation, calling each other Will and Joe for they were old and close friends. And they discussed matters in that cozy tone of confidential intercourse which is so directly at variance with the tones used by men when they ordinarily talk of business. 'He has brought me good news for your friend, Miss Amedroz,' said the lawyer.

'What good news?'

'That aunt of hers left her fifteen hundred pounds, after all. Or rather, she did not leave it, but desired on her death-bed that it might be given.'

'That's the same thing, I suppose?'

'Oh quite that is to say, it's the same thing if the person who has to hand over the money does not dispute the legacy. But it shows how the old lady's conscience pricked her at last. And after all it was a shabby sum, and should have been three times as much.'

'Fifteen hundred pounds! And that is all she will have when her father dies?'

'Every farthing, Will. You'll take all the rest.'

'I wish she wasn't going to have that.'

'Why? Why on earth should you of all men grudge her such a moderate maintenance, seeing that you have not got to pay it?'

'It isn't a maintenance. How could it be a maintenance for such as her? What sort of maintenance would it be?'

'Much better than nothing. And so you would feel if she were your daughter.'

'She shall be my daughter, or my sister, or whatever you like to call her. You don't think that I'll take the whole estate and leave her to starve on the interest of fifteen hundred pounds a year!'

'You'd better make her your wife at once, Will.'

Will Belton blushed as he answered, 'That, perhaps, would be easier said than done. That is not in my power even if I should wish it. But the other is in my power.'

'Will, take my advice, and don't make any romantic promises when you are down at Belton. You'll be sure to regret them if you do. And you should remember that in truth Miss Amedroz has no greater claim on you than any other lady in the land.'

'Isn't she my cousin?'

'Well yes. She is your cousin, but a distant one only; and I'm not aware that cousinship gives any claim.'

'Who is she to have a claim on? I'm the nearest she has got. Besides, am not I going to take all the property which ought to be hers?'

'That's just it. There's no such ought in the case. The property is as much your own as this poker is mine. That's exactly the mistake I want you to guard against. If you liked her, and chose to marry her, that would be all very well; presuming that you don't want to get money in marriage.'

'I hate the idea of marrying for money.'

'All right. Then marry Miss Amedroz if you please. But don't make any rash undertakings to be her father, or her brother, or her uncle, or her aunt. Such romance always leads a man into trouble.'

'But I've done it already.'

'What do you mean?'

'I've told her that I would be her brother, and that as long as I had a shilling she should never want sixpence. And I mean it. And as for what you say about romance and repenting it, that simply comes from your being a lawyer.'

'Thank ye, Will.'

'If one goes to a chemist, of course one gets physic, and has to put up with the bad smells.'

'Thank you again.'

'But the chemist may be a very good sort of fellow at home all the same, and have a cupboard full of sweetmeats and a garden full of flowers. However, the thing is done as far as I am concerned, and I can almost find it in my heart to be sorry that Clara has got this driblet of money. Fifteen hundred pounds! It would keep her out of the workhouse, and that is about all.'

'If you knew how many ladies in her position would think that the heavens had rained wealth upon them if some one would give them fifteen hundred pounds!'

'Very well. At any rate I won't take it away from her. And now I want you to tell me something else. Do you remember a fellow we used to know named Berdmore?'

'Philip Berdmore?'

'He may have been Philip, or Daniel, or Jeremiah, for anything I know. But the man I mean was very much given to taking his liquor freely.'

'That was Jack Berdmore, Philip's brother. Oh yes, I remember him. He's dead now. He drank himself to death at last, out in India.'

'He was in the army?'

'Yes and what a pleasant fellow he was at times! I see Phil constantly, and Phil's wife, but they never speak of Jack.'

'He got married, didn't he, after we used to see him?'

Oh yes he and Phil married sisters. It was a sad affair, that.'

'I remember being with him and her and the sister too, after they were engaged, and he got so drunk that we were obliged to take him away. There was a large party of us at Richmond, but I don't think you were there.'

'But I heard of it'

'And she was a Miss Vigo?'

'Exactly. I see the younger sister constantly. Phil isn't very rich, and he's got a lot of children but he's very happy.'

'What became of the other sister?

'Of Jack's wife?'

'Yes. What became of her?'

'I haven't an idea. Something bad, I suppose, as they never speak of her.'

'And how long is he dead?'

'He died about three years since. I only knew it from Phil's telling me that he was in mourning for him. Then he did speak of him for a moment or two, and I came to know that he had carried on to the end in the same way. If a fellow takes to drink in this country, he'll never get cured in India.'

'I suppose not.'

'Never.'

'And now I want to find out something about his widow.'

'And why?'

'Ah I'm not sure that I can tell you why. Indeed I'm sure that I cannot. But still you might be able to assist me.'

'There were heaps of people who used to know the Vigos,' said the lawyer.

'No end of people though I couldn't for the life of me say who any of them were.'

'They used to come out in London with an aunt, but nobody knew much about her. I fancy they had neither father nor mother.'

'They were very pretty.'

'And how well they danced. I don't think I ever knew a girl who danced so pleasantly giving herself no airs, you know as Mary Vigo.'

'Her name was Mary,' said Belton, remembering that Mrs Askerton's name was also Mary.

'Jack Berdmore married Mary.'

'Well now, Joe, you must find out for me what became of her. Was she with her husband when he died?'

'Nobody was with him. Phil told me so. No one, that is, but a young lieutenant and his own servant. It was very sad. He had D.T., and all that sort of thing.'

'And where was she?'

'At Jericho, for anything that I know.'

'Will you find out?' Then Mr Joseph Green thought for a moment of his capabilities in that line, and having made an engagement to dine with his friend at his club on the evening before Will left London, said at last that he thought he could find out through certain mutual friends who had known the Berdmores in the old days. 'But the fact is,' said the lawyer, 'that the world is so good-natured instead of being ill-natured, as people say that it always forgets those who want to be forgotten.'

We must now go back for a few moments to Captain Aylmer and his affairs. Having given a full month to the consideration of his position as regarded Miss Amedroz, he made up his mind to two things. In the first place, he would at once pay over to her the money which was to be hers as her aunt's legacy, and then he would renew his offer. To that latter determination he was guided by mixed motives by motives which, when joined together, rarely fail to be operative. His conscience told him that he ought to do so and then the fact of her having, as it were, taken herself away from him, made him again wish to possess her. And there was another cause which, perhaps, operated in the same direction. He had consulted his mother, and she had strongly advised him to have nothing further to do with Miss Amedroz. Lady Aylmer abused her dead sister heartily for having interfered in the matter, and endeavoured to prove to her son that he was released from his promise by having in fact performed it. But on this point his conscience interfered backed by his wishes and he made his resolve as has been above stated. On leaving Mr Green's chambers he went to his own lodgings, and wrote his letter as follows:

'Mount Street, December, 186—.

'Dearest Clara,

'When you parted from me at Perivale you said certain things about our engagement which I have come to understand better since then, than I did at the time. It escaped from me that my dear aunt and I had had some conversation about you, and that I had told her what was my intention. Something was said about a promise, and I think it was that word which made you unhappy. At such a time as that when I and my aunt were talking together, and when she was, as she well knew, on her deathbed, things will be said which would not be thought of in other circumstances. I can only assure you now, that the promise I gave her was a promise to do that which I had previously resolved upon doing. If you can believe what I say on this head, that ought to be sufficient to remove the feeling which induced you to break our engagement.

'I now write to renew my offer to you, and to assure you that I do so with my whole heart. You will forgive me if I tell you that I cannot fail to remember, and always to bear in my mind, the sweet assurances which you gave me of your regard for myself. As I do not know that anything has occurred to alter your opinion of me, I write this letter in strong hope that it may be successful. I believe that your fear was in respect to my affection for you, not as to yours for me. If this was so, I can assure you that there is no necessity for such fear.

'I need not tell you that I shall expect your answer with great anxiety.

'Yours most affectionately,

'F. F. AYLMER.

'P.S. I have today caused to be bought in your name Bank Stock to the amount of fifteen hundred pounds, the amount of the legacy coming to you from my aunt.'

This letter, and that from Mr Green respecting the money, both reached Clara on the same morning. Now, having learned so much as to the position of affairs at Belton Castle, we may return to Will and his dinner engagement with Mr Joseph Green.

'And what have you heard about Mrs Berdmore?' Belton asked, almost as soon as the two men were together.

'I wish I knew why you want to know.'

'I don't want to do anybody any harm.'

'Do you want to do anybody any good?'

'Any good! I can't say that I want to do any particular good. The truth is, I think I know where she is, and that she is living under a false name.'

'Then you know more of her than I do.'

'I don't know anything. I'm only in doubt. But as the lady I mean lives near to friends of mine, I should like to know.'

'That you may expose her?'

'No by no means. But I hate the idea of deceit. The truth is, that any one living anywhere under a false name should be exposed or should be made to assume their right name.'

'I find that Mrs Berdmore left her husband some years before he died. There was nothing in that to create wonder, for he was a man with whom a woman could hardly continue to live. But I fear she left him under protection that was injurious to her character.

'And how long ago is that?'

'I do not know. Some years before his death.'

'And how long ago did he die?'

'About three years since. My informant tells me that he believes she has since married. Now you know all that I know.' And Belton also knew that Mrs Askerton of the cottage was the Miss Vigo with whom he had been acquainted in earlier years.

After that they dined comfortably, and nothing passed between them which need be recorded as essential to our story till the time came for them to part. Then, when they were both standing at the club door, the lawyer said a word or two which is essential. 'So you're off tomorrow?' said he.

'Yes; I shall go down by the express.'

'I wish you a pleasant journey. By the by, I ought to tell you that you won't have any trouble in being either father or mother, or uncle or aunt to Miss Amedroz.'

'Why not?'

'I suppose it's no secret.'

'What's no secret?

'She's going to be married to Captain Aylmer.'

Then Will Belton started so violently, and assumed on a sudden so manifest a look of anger, that his tale was at once told to Mr Green. 'Who says so?' he asked. 'I don't believe it.'

'I'm afraid it's true all the same, Will.'

'Who says it?'

'Captain Aylmer was with me today, and he told me. He ought to be good authority on such a subject.'

'He told you that he was going to marry Clara Amedroz?'

'Yes, indeed.'

'And what made him come to you, to tell you?'

'There was a question about some money which he had paid to her, and which, under existing circumstances, he thought it as well that he should not pay. Matters of that kind are often necessarily told to lawyers. But I should not have told it to you, Will, if I had not thought that it was good news.'

'It is not good news,' said Belton moodily.

'At any rate, old fellow, my telling it will do no harm. You must have learned it soon.' And he put his hand kindly almost tenderly, on the other's arm. But Belton moved himself away angrily. The wound had been so lately inflicted that he could not as yet forgive the hand that had seemed to strike him.

'I'm sorry that it should be so bad with you, Will.'

'What do you mean by bad? It is not bad with me. It is very well with me. Keep your pity for those who want it.' Then he walked off by himself across the broad street before the club door, leaving his friend without a word of farewell, and made his way up into St. James's Square, choosing, as was evident to Mr Green, the first street that would take him out of sight.

'He's hit, and hit hard,' said the lawyer, looking after him. 'Poor fellow! I might have guessed it from what he said. I never knew of his caring for any woman before.' Then Mr Green put on his gloves and went away home.

We will now follow Will Belton into St. James's Square, and we shall follow a very unhappy gentleman. Doubtless he had hitherto known and appreciated the fact that Miss Amedroz had refused his offer, and had often declared, both to himself and to his sister, his conviction that that refusal would never be reversed. But, in spite of that expressed conviction, he had lived on hope. Till she belonged to another man she might yet be his. He might win her at last by perseverance. At any rate he had it in his power to work towards the desired end, and might find solace even in that working. And the misery of his loss would not be so great to him as he found himself forced to confess to himself before he had completed his wanderings on this night in not having her for his own, as it would be in knowing that she had given herself to another man. He had often told himself that of course she would become the wife of some man, but he had never yet realized to himself what it would be to know that she was the wife of any one specified rival. He had been sad enough on that moonlight night in the avenue at Plaistow when he had leaned against the tree, striking his hands together as he thought of his great want; but his unhappiness then had been as nothing to his agony now. Now it was all over and he knew the man who had supplanted him.

How he hated him! With what an unchristian spirit did he regard that worthy captain as he walked across St. James's Square, across Jermyn Street, across Piccadilly, and up Bond Street, not knowing whither he was going. He thought with an intense regret of the laws of modern society which forbid duelling forgetting altogether that even had the old law prevailed, the conduct of the man whom he so hated would have afforded him no casus belli. But he was too far gone in misery and animosity to be capable of any reason on the matter. Captain Aylmer had interfered with his dearest wishes, and during this now passing hour he would willingly have crucified Captain Aylmer had it been within his power to do so. Till he had gone beyond Oxford Street, and had wandered away into the far distance of Portman Square and Baker Street, he had not begun to think of any interest which Clara Amedroz might have in the matter on which his thoughts were employed. He was sojourning at an hotel in Bond Street, and had gone thitherwards more by habit than by thought; but he had passed the door of his inn, feeling it to be impossible to render himself up to his bed in his present disturbed mood. As he was passing the house in Bond Street he had been intent on the destruction of Captain Aylmer and had almost determined that if Captain Aylmer could not be made to vanish into eternity, he must make up his mind to go that road himself.

It was out of the question that he should go down to Belton. As to that he had come to a very decided opinion by the time that he had crossed Oxford Street. Go down to see her, when she had treated him after this fashion I No, indeed. She wanted no brother now. She had chosen to trust herself to this other man, and he, Will Belton, would not interfere further in her affairs. Then he drew upon his imagination for a picture of the future, in which he portrayed Captain Aylmer as a ruined man, who would probably desert his wife, and make himself generally odious to all his acquaintance a picture as to the realization of which I am bound to say that Captain Aylmer's antecedents gave no probability. But it was the looking at this self-drawn picture which first softened the artist's heart towards the victim whom he had immolated on his imaginary canvas. When Clara should be ruined by the baseness and villainy and general scampishness of this man whom she was going to marry to whom she was about to be weak enough and fool enough to trust herself then he would interpose and be her brother once again a broken-hearted brother no doubt, but a brother efficacious to keep the wolf from the door of this poor woman and her children. Then, as he thus created Captain Aylmer's embryo family of unprovided orphans for after a while he killed the captain, making him to die some death that was very disgraceful, but not very distinct even to his own imagination as he thought of those coming pledges of a love which was to him so bitter, he stormed about the streets, performing antics of which no one would have believed him capable who had known him as the thriving Mr William Belton, of Plaistow Hall, among the fens of Norfolk.

But the character of a man is not to be judged from the pictures which he may draw or from the antics which he may play in his solitary hours. Those who act generally with the most consummate wisdom in the affairs of the world, often meditate very silly doings before their wiser resolutions form themselves. I beg, therefore, that Mr Belton may be regarded and criticized in accordance with his conduct on the following morning when his midnight rambles, which finally took him even beyond the New Road, had been followed by a few tranquil hours in his Bond Street bedroom for at last he did bring himself to return thither and put himself to bed after the usual fashion. He put himself to bed in a spirit somewhat tranquillized by the exercise of the night, and at last wept himself to sleep like a baby.

But he was by no means like a baby when he took him early on the following morning to the Paddington Station, and booked himself manfully for Taunton. He had had time to recognize the fact that he had no ground of quarrel with his cousin because she had preferred another man to him. This had happened to him as he was recrossing the New Road about two o'clock, and was beginning to find that his legs were weary under him. And, indeed, he had recognized one or two things before he had gone to sleep with his tears dripping on to his pillow. In the first place, he had ill-treated Joe Green, and had made a fool of himself in his friend's presence. As Joe Green was a sensible, kind-hearted fellow, this did not much signify;—but not on that account did he omit to tell himself of his own fault. Then he discovered that it would ill become him to break his word to Mr Amedroz and to his daughter, and to do so without a word of excuse, because Clara had exercised a right which was indisputably her own. He had undertaken certain work at Belton which required his presence, and he would go down and do his work as though nothing had occurred to disturb him. To remain away because of this misfortune would be to show the white feather. It would be unmanly. All this he recognized as the pictures he had painted faded away from their canvases. As to Captain Aylmer himself, he hoped that he might never be called upon to meet him. He still hoped that, even as he was resolutely cramming his shirts into his portmanteau before he began his journey. His Cousin Clara he thought he could meet, and tender to her some expression of good wishes as to her future life, without giving way under the effort. And to the old squire he could endeavour to make himself pleasant, speaking of the relief from all trouble which this marriage with Captain Aylmer would afford for now, in his cooler moments, he could perceive that Captain Aylmer was not a man apt to ruin himself, or his wife and children. But to Captain Aylmer himself, he could not bring himself to say pleasant things or to express pleasant wishes. She who was to be Captain Aylmer's wife, who loved him, would of course have told him what had occurred up among the rocks in Belton Park; and if that was so, any meeting between Will and Captain Aylmer would be death to the former.

Thinking of all this he journeyed down to Taunton, and thinking of all this he made his way from Taunton across to Belton Park.



CHAPTER XV

EVIL WORDS

Clara Amedroz had received her two letters together that, namely, from the attorney, and that from Captain Aylmer and the result of those letters is already known. She accepted her lover's renewed offer of marriage, acknowledging the force of his logic, and putting faith in the strength of his assurances. This she did without seeking advice from any one. Who was there from whom she could seek advice on such a matter as that who, at least, was there at Belton? That her father would, as a matter of course, bid her accept Captain Aylmer, was, she thought, certain; and she knew well that Mrs Askerton would do the same. She asked no counsel from any one, but taking the two letters up to her own room, sat down to consider them. That which referred to her aunt's money, together with the postscript in Captain Aylmer's letter on the same subject, would be of the least possible moment if she could bring herself to give a favourable answer to the other proposition. But should she not be able to do this should she hesitate as to doing so at once then she must write to the lawyer in very strong terms, refusing altogether to have anything to do with the money. And in such a case as this, not a word could she say to her father either on one subject or on the other.