station of the Great Northern Railway on the following morning?
All the little intricacies of the question presented themselves to
Will's imagination. How careful he would be with her, that the inn
accommodation should suffice for her comfort! With what pleasure
would he order a little dinner for them two, making something of a
gentle _fete_ of the occasion! How sedulously would he wait upon her
with those little attentions, amounting almost to worship, with which
such men as Will Belton are prone to treat all women in exceptionable
circumstances, when the ordinary routine of life has been disturbed!
If she had simply been his cousin, and if he had never regarded
her otherwise, how happily could he have done all this! As things
now were, if it was left to him to do, he should do it, with what
patience and grace might be within his power; he would do it, though
he would be mindful every moment of the bitterness of the transfer
which he would so soon be obliged to make; but he doubted whether it
would not be better for Clara's sake that the transfer should be made
over-night. He would take her up to London, because in that way he
could be useful; and then he would go away and hide himself. "Has
Captain Aylmer said where he would meet you?" he asked after a pause.

"Of course I must write and tell him."

"And is he to come to you,--when you reach London?"

"He has said nothing about that. He will probably be at the House of
Commons, or too busy somewhere to come to me then. But why do you
ask? Do you wish to hurry through town?"

"Oh dear, no."

"Or perhaps you have friends you want to see. Pray don't let me be in
your way. I shall do very well, you know."

Belton rebuked her by a look before he answered her. "I was only
thinking," he said, "of what would be most convenient for yourself.
I have nobody to see, and nothing to do, and nowhere to go to." Then
Clara understood it all, and said that she would write to Captain
Aylmer and ask him to join them at the hotel.

She determined that she would see Mrs. Askerton before she went; and
as that lady did not come to the Castle, Clara called upon her at
the cottage. This she did the day before she left, and she took her
cousin with her. Belton had been at the cottage once or twice since
the day on which Mrs. Askerton had explained to him how the Aylmer
alliance might be extinguished, but Colonel Askerton had always been
there, and no reference had been made to the forme