had said to the lawyers.
"We all hope, of course, that Lord Ongar may live long; no doubt he'll
turn over a new leaf and die at ninety. But in such a case as this the
widow must not be fettered." The widow had not been fettered, and Julia
had been made to understand the full advantage of such an arrangement.
But still she had believed in love when she had bade farewell to Harry
in the garden. She had told herself then, even then, that she would have
better liked to have taken him and his love--if only she could have
afforded it. He had not dreamed that in leaving him she had gone from
him to her room, and taken out his picture--the same that she had with
her now in Bolton Street--and had kissed it, bidding him farewell there
with a passion which she could not display in his presence. And she had
thought of his offer about the money over and over again. "Yes," she
would say, "that man loved me. He would have given me all he had to
relieve me, though nothing was to come to him in return." She had, at
any rate been loved once; and she almost wished that she had taken the
money, that she might now have an opportunity of repaying it.

And she was again free, and her old lover was again by her side. Had
that fatal episode in her life been so fatal that she must now regard
herself as tainted and unfit for him? There was no longer anything to
separate them--anything of which she was aware, unless it was that. And
as for his love--did he not look and speak as though he loved her still?
Had he not pressed her hand passionately, and kissed it, and once more
called her Julia? How should it be that he should not love her? In such
a case as his, love might have been turned to hatred or to enmity; but
it was not so with him. He called himself her friend. How could there be
friendship between them without love?

And then she thought how much with her wealth she might do for him. With
all his early studies and his talent, Harry Clavering was not the man,
she thought, to make his way in the world by hard work; but with such an
income as she could give him, he might shine among the proud ones of his
nation. He should go into Parliament, and do great things. He should be
lord of all. It should all be his without a word of reserve. She had
been mercenary once, but she would atone for that now by open-handed,
undoubting generosity. She herself had learned to hate the house and
fields and widespread comforts of Ongar Park. She had walked amon