nd 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 recognised it as a fact that he was no longer bound to her as her
future husband. Indeed, he had no power of not recognising 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 had 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 s