so had not Captain Aylmer been
before me. And now tell me whether I could ask her to come here."

"It would be useless, as she is going to Aylmer Castle."

"But she is going there simply to find a home,--having no other."

"That is not so, Mrs. Askerton. She has a home as perfectly her own
as any woman in the land. Belton Castle is hers, to do what she may
please with it. She can live here if she likes it, and nobody can say
a word to her. She need not go to Aylmer Castle to look for a home."

"You mean you would lend her the house?"

"It is hers."

"I do not understand you, Mr. Belton."

"It does not signify;--we will say no more about it."

"And you think she likes going to Lady Aylmer's?"

"How should I say what she likes?"

Then there was another pause before Mrs. Askerton spoke again. "I can
tell you one thing," she said: "she does not like him."

"That is her affair."

"But she should be taught to know her own mind before she throws
herself away altogether. You would not wish your cousin to marry a
man whom she does not love because at one time she had come to think
that she loved him. That is the truth of it, Mr. Belton. If she goes
to Aylmer Castle she will marry him,--and she will be an unhappy
woman always afterwards. If you would sanction her coming here for
a few days, I think all that would be cured. She would come in a
moment, if you advised her."

Then he went away, allowing himself to make no further answer at the
moment, and discussed the matter with himself as he walked back to
Redicote, meditating on it with all his mind, and all his heart,
and all his strength. And, as he meditated, it came on to rain
bitterly,--a cold piercing February rain,--and the darkness of night
came upon him, and he floundered on through the thick mud of the
Somersetshire lanes, unconscious of the weather and of the darkness.
There was a way open to him by which he might even yet get what he
wanted. He thought he saw that there was a way open to him through
the policy of this woman, whom he perceived to have become friendly
to him. He saw, or thought that he saw, it all. No day had absolutely
been fixed for this journey to Yorkshire; and if Clara were induced
to go first to the cottage, and stay there with Mrs. Askerton, no
such journey might ever be taken. He could well understand that
such a visit on her part would give a mortal offence to all the
Aylmers. That tyranny of which Clara spoke with so much drea