that he asked with a voice
not exactly peremptory.

She said in her heart, "It is your fault: you are relentless and you
would ruin Crossjay to punish him for devoting himself to me, like the
poor thoughtless boy he is! and so I am bound in honour to do my utmost
for him."

The reciprocal devotedness, moreover, served two purposes: it preserved
her from brooding on the humiliation of her lame flight, and flutter
back, and it quieted her mind in regard to the precipitate intimacy of
her relations with Colonel De Craye. Willoughby's boast of his
implacable character was to blame. She was at war with him, and she was
compelled to put the case in that light. Crossjay must be shielded from
one who could not spare an offender, so Colonel De Craye quite
naturally was called on for his help, and the colonel's dexterous aid
appeared to her more admirable than alarming.

Nevertheless, she would not have answered a direct question falsely.
She was for the fib, but not the lie; at a word she could be disdainful
of subterfuges. Her look said that. Willoughby perceived it. She had
written him a letter of three lines: "There were but three": and she
had destroyed the letter. Something perchance was repented by her? Then
she had done him an injury! Between his wrath at the suspicion of an
injury, and the prudence enjoined by his abject coveting of her, he
consented to be fooled for the sake of vengeance, and something
besides.

"Well! here you are, safe; I have you!" said he, with courtly
exultation: "and that is better than your handwriting. I have been all
over the country after you."

"Why did you? We are not in a barbarous land," said Clara.

"Crossjay talks of your visiting a sick child, my love:--you have
changed your dress?"

"You see."

"The boy declared you were going to that farm of Hoppner's, and some
cottage. I met at my gates a tramping vagabond who swore to seeing you
and the boy in a totally contrary direction."

"Did you give him money?"

"I fancy so."

"Then he was paid for having seen me."

Willoughby tossed his head: it might be as she suggested; beggars are
liars.

"But who sheltered you, my dear Clara? You had not been heard of at
Hoppner's."

"The people have been indemnified for their pains. To pay them more
would be to spoil them. You disperse money too liberally. There was no
fever in the place. Who could have anticipated such a downpour! I want
to consult Miss Dale on the important theme o