This morning she would
have an answer to her letter to her friend, Miss Lucy Darleton, the
pretty dark girl, whom De Craye was astonished not to have noticed more
when he danced with her. She, pretty as she was, had come to his
recollection through the name and rank of her father, a famous general
of cavalry, and tactician in that arm. The colonel despised himself for
not having been devoted to Clara Middleton's friend.

The morning's letters were on the bronze plate in the hall. Clara
passed on her way to her room without inspecting them. De Craye opened
an envelope and went upstairs to scribble a line. Sir Willoughby
observed their absence at the solemn reading to the domestic servants
in advance of breakfast. Three chairs were unoccupied. Vernon had his
own notions of a mechanical service--and a precious profit he derived
from them! but the other two seats returned the stare Willoughby cast
at their backs with an impudence that reminded him of his friend
Horace's calling for a book of the trains, when a minute afterward he
admitted he was going to stay at the Hall another two days, or three.
The man possessed by jealousy is never in need of matter for it: he
magnifies; grass is jungle, hillocks are mountains. Willoughby's legs
crossing and uncrossing audibly, and his tight-folded arms and clearing
of the throat, were faint indications of his condition.

"Are you in fair health this morning, Willoughby?" Dr. Middleton said
to him after he had closed his volumes.

"The thing is not much questioned by those who know me intimately," he
replied.

"Willoughby unwell!" and, "He is health incarnate!" exclaimed the
ladies Eleanor and Isabel.

Laetitia grieved for him. Sun-rays on a pest-stricken city, she
thought, were like the smile of his face. She believed that he deeply
loved Clara, and had learned more of her alienation.

He went into the ball to look into the well for the pair of
malefactors; on fire with what he could not reveal to a soul.

De Craye was in the housekeeper's room, talking to young Crossjay, and
Mrs. Montague just come up to breakfast. He had heard the boy
chattering, and as the door was ajar he peeped in, and was invited to
enter. Mrs. Montague was very fond of hearing him talk: he paid her the
familiar respect which a lady of fallen fortunes, at a certain period
after the fall, enjoys as a befittingly sad souvenir, and the
respectfulness of the lord of the house was more chilling.

She bewail