her feel that under no circumstances could she
again reside there. Nor was it probable that she would be able to
make to Mrs. Askerton the visit of which they had been talking. If
Lady Aylmer were wise,--so Clara thought,--there would be no mention
of Mrs. Askerton at Aylmer Park; and, if so, of course she would not
outrage her future husband by proposing to go to a house of which
she knew that he disapproved. If Lady Aylmer were not wise;--if
she should take upon herself the task of rebuking Clara for her
friendship,--then, in such circumstances as those, Clara believed
that the visit to Mrs. Askerton might be possible.

But she determined that she would leave the home in which she had
been born, and had passed so many happy and so many unhappy days, as
though she were never to see it again. All her packing had been done,
down to the last fragment of an old letter that was stuffed into her
writing-desk; but, nevertheless, she went about the house with a
candle in her hand, as though she were still looking that nothing had
been omitted, while she was in truth saying farewell in her heart to
every corner which she knew so well. When at last she came down to
pour out for her desolate cousin his cup of tea, she declared that
everything was done. "You may go to work now, Will," she said, "and
do what you please with the old place. My jurisdiction in it is
over."

"Not altogether," said he. He no longer spoke like a despairing
lover. Indeed there was a smile round his mouth, and his voice was
cheery.

"Yes;--altogether. I give over my sovereignty from this moment;--and
a dirty dilapidated sovereignty it is."

"That's all very well to say."

"And also very well to do. What best pleases me in going to Aylmer
Castle just now is the power it gives me of doing at once that which
otherwise I might have put off till the doing of it had become much
more unpleasant. Mr. Belton, there is the key of the cellar,--which
I believe gentlemen always regard as the real sign of possession. I
don't advise you to trust much to the contents." He took the key from
her, and without saying a word chucked it across the room on to an
old sofa. "If you won't take it, you had better, at any rate, have it
tied up with the others," she said.

"I dare say you'll know where to find it when you want it," he
answered.

"I shall never want it."

"Then it's as well there as anywhere else."

"But you won't remember, Will."

"I don't suppose I sh