and returned with Patience to
the villa.

"My dear," said Sir Thomas, seating himself by Clarissa's bedside,
"this is very bad."

"If I had known you were coming, papa, I would have got up."

"If you are not well, perhaps you are better here, dear."

"I don't think I am quite well, papa."

"What is it, my love?" Clarissa looked at him out of her large
tear-laden eyes, but said nothing. "Patience says that you are not
happy."

"I don't know that anybody is happy, papa."

"I wish that you were with all my heart, my child. Can your father do
anything that will make you happy?"

"No, papa."

"Tell me, Clary. You do not mind my asking you questions?"

"No, papa."

"Patience tells me that you are still thinking of Ralph Newton."

"Of course I think of him."

"I think of him too;--but there are different ways of thinking. We
have known him, all of us, a long time."

"Yes, papa."

"I wish with all my heart that we had never seen him. He is not
worthy of our solicitude."

"You always liked him. I have heard you say you loved him dearly."

"I have said so, and I did love him. In a certain way I love him
still."

"So do I, papa."

"But I know him to be unworthy. Even if he had come here to offer you
his hand I doubt whether I could have permitted an engagement. Do you
know that within the last two months he has twice offered to marry
another young woman, and I doubt whether he is not at this moment
engaged to her?"

"Another?" said poor Clarissa.

"Yes, and that without a pretence of affection on his part, simply
because he wanted to get money from her father."

"Are you sure, papa?" asked Clarissa, who was not prepared to
believe, and did not believe this enormity on the part of the man she
loved.

"I am quite sure. The father came to me to complain of him, and I had
the confession from Ralph's own lips, the very day that he came here
with his insulting offer to Mary Bonner."

"Did you tell Mary?"

"No. I knew that it was unnecessary. There was no danger as to Mary.
And who do you think this girl was? The daughter of a tailor, who had
made some money. It was not that he cared for her, Clary;--no more
than I do! Whether he meant to marry her or not I do not know."

"I'm sure he didn't, papa," said Clarissa, getting up in bed.

"And will that make it better? All that he wanted was the tradesman's
money, and to get that he was willing either to deceive the girl, or
to sell himself to her. I do