answering: "I see nothing wrong in doing what mama thinks right,
Richard."

"Your mother! I tell you it's an infamy, Clare! It's a miserable sin! I
tell you, if I had done such a thing I would not live an hour after it.
And coldly to prepare for it! to be busy about your dresses! They told me
when I came in that you were with the milliner. To be smiling over the
horrible outrage! decorating yourself!"...

"Dear Richard," said Clare, "you will make me very unhappy."

"That one of my blood should be so debased!" he cried, brushing angrily
at his face. "Unhappy! I beg you to feel for yourself, Clare. But I
suppose," and he said it scornfully, "girls don't feel this sort of
shame."

She grew a trifle paler.

"Next to mama, I would wish to please you, dear Richard."

"Have you no will of your own?" he exclaimed.

She looked at him softly; a look he interpreted for the meekness he
detested in her.

"No, I believe you have none!" he added. "And what can I do? I can't step
forward and stop this accursed marriage. If you would but say a word I
would save you; but you tie my hands. And they expect me to stand by and
see it done!"

"Will you not be there, Richard?" said Clare, following the question with
her soft eyes. It was the same voice that had so thrilled him on his
marriage morn.

"Oh, my darling Clare!" he cried in the kindest way he had ever used to
her, "if you knew how I feel this!" and now as he wept she wept, and came
insensibly into his arms.

"My darling Clare!" he repeated.

She said nothing, but seemed to shudder, weeping.

"You will do it, Clare? You will be sacrificed? So lovely as you are,
too!... Clare! you cannot be quite blind. If I dared speak to you, and
tell you all.... Look up. Can you still consent?"

"I must not disobey mama," Clare murmured, without looking up from the
nest her cheek had made on his bosom.

"Then kiss me for the last time," said Richard. "I'll never kiss you
after it, Clare."

He bent his head to meet her mouth, and she threw her arms wildly round
him, and kissed him convulsively, and clung to his lips, shutting her
eyes, her face suffused with a burning red.

Then he left her, unaware of the meaning of those passionate kisses.

Argument with Mrs. Doria was like firing paper-pellets against a stone
wall. To her indeed the young married hero spoke almost indecorously, and
that which his delicacy withheld him from speaking to Clare. He could
provoke nothing more