of any reason on the matter. Captain
Aylmer had interfered with his dearest wishes, and during this now
passing hour he would willingly have crucified Captain Aylmer had
it been within his power to do so. Till he had gone beyond Oxford
Street, and had wandered away into the far distance of Portman Square
and Baker Street, he had not begun to think of any interest which
Clara Amedroz might have in the matter on which his thoughts were
employed. He was sojourning at an hotel in Bond Street, and had gone
thitherwards more by habit than by thought; but he had passed the
door of his inn, feeling it to be impossible to render himself up to
his bed in his present disturbed mood. As he was passing the house
in Bond Street he had been intent on the destruction of Captain
Aylmer,--and had almost determined that if Captain Aylmer could not
be made to vanish into eternity, he must make up his mind to go that
road himself.

It was out of the question that he should go down to Belton. As to
that he had come to a very decided opinion by the time that he had
crossed Oxford Street. Go down to see her, when she had treated him
after this fashion! No, indeed. She wanted no brother now. She had
chosen to trust herself to this other man, and he, Will Belton,
would not interfere further in her affairs. Then he drew upon his
imagination for a picture of the future, in which he portrayed
Captain Aylmer as a ruined man, who would probably desert his wife,
and make himself generally odious to all his acquaintance--a picture
as to the realisation of which I am bound to say that Captain
Aylmer's antecedents gave no probability. But it was the looking
at this self-drawn picture which first softened the artist's heart
towards the victim whom he had immolated on his imaginary canvas.
When Clara should be ruined by the baseness and villany and general
scampishness of this man whom she was going to marry,--to whom she
was about to be weak enough and fool enough to trust herself,--then
he would interpose and be her brother once again,--a broken-hearted
brother no doubt, but a brother efficacious to keep the wolf from
the door of this poor woman and her--children. Then, as he thus
created Captain Aylmer's embryo family of unprovided orphans,--for
after a while he killed the captain, making him to die some death
that was very disgraceful, but not very distinct even to his own
imagination,--as he thought of those coming pledges of a love which
was to him