e answered it thoughtlessly. "Of course
he knows that he can do that."

"He says that he has been forbidden."

"Oh, Mary, what am I to say to you? You know it all, and I wonder
that you can continue to question me in this way."

"Know all what?"

"That I have been engaged to Captain Aylmer."

"But you are not engaged to him now."

"No--I am not."

"And there can be no renewal there, I suppose?"

"Oh, no!"

"Not even for my brother would I say a word if I thought--"

"No;--there is nothing of that; but--. If you cannot understand, I do
not think that I can explain it." It seemed to Clara that her cousin,
in her anxiety for her brother, did not conceive that a woman,
even if she could suddenly transfer her affections from one man to
another, could not bring herself to say that she had done so.

"I must write to him to-day," said Mary, "and I must give him some
answer. Shall I tell him that he had better not come here till you
are gone?"

"That will perhaps be best," said Clara.

"Then he will never come at all."

"I can go;--can go at once. I will go at once. You shall never have
to say that my presence prevented his coming to his own house. I
ought not to be here. I know it now. I will go away, and you may tell
him that I am gone."

"No, dear; you will not go."

"Yes;--I must go. I fancied things might be otherwise, because he
once told me that--he--would--be--a brother to me. And I said I would
hold him to that;--not only because I want a brother so badly, but
because I love him so dearly. But it cannot be like that."

"You do not think that he will ever desert you?"

"But I will go away, so that he may come to his own house. I ought
not to be here. Of course I ought not to be at Belton,--either in
this house or in any other. Tell him that I will be gone before he
can come, and tell him also that I will not be too proud to accept
from him what it may be fit that he should give me. I have no one but
him;--no one but him;--no one but him." Then she burst into tears,
and throwing back her head, covered her face with her hands.

Miss Belton, upon this, rose slowly from the chair on which she was
sitting, and making her way painfully across to Clara, stood leaning
on the weeping girl's chair. "You shall not go while I am here," she
said.

"Yes; I must go. He cannot come till I am gone."

"Think of it all once again, Clara. May I not tell him to come, and
that while he is coming you will see if yo