at 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, Frederic," 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
unbefi