er--you do not give me that chance--you wed me to
one who"----

"Fear him not, nor the worst that he can do, Clara," said her brother.
"I know on what terms he marries; and being once more your brother, as
your obedience in this matter will make me, he had better tear his flesh
from his bones with his own teeth, than do thee any displeasure! By
Heaven, I hate him so much--for he has outreached me every way--that
methinks it is some consolation that he will not receive in thee the
excellent creature I thought thee!--Fallen as thou art, thou art still
too good for him."

Encouraged by the more gentle and almost affectionate tone in which her
brother spoke, Clara could not help saying, although almost in a
whisper, "I trust it will not be so--I trust he will consider his own
condition, honour, and happiness, better than to share it with me."

"Let him utter such a scruple if he dares," said Mowbray--"But he dares
not hesitate--he knows that the instant he recedes from addressing you,
he signs his own death-warrant or mine, or perhaps that of both; and his
views, too, are of a kind that will not be relinquished on a point of
scrupulous delicacy merely. Therefore, Clara, nourish no such thought
in your heart as that there is the least possibility of your escaping
this marriage! The match is booked--Swear you will not hesitate."

"I will not," she said, almost breathlessly, terrified lest he was about
to start once more into the fit of unbridled fury which had before
seized on him.

"Do not even whisper or hint an objection, but submit to your fate, for
it is inevitable."

"I will--submit"--answered Clara, in the same trembling accent.

"And I," he said, "will spare you--at least at present--and it may be
for ever--all enquiry into the guilt which you have confessed. Rumours
there were of misconduct, which reached my ears even in England; but who
could have believed them that looked on you daily, and witnessed your
late course of life?--On this subject I will be at present
silent--perhaps may not again touch on it--that is, if you do nothing to
thwart my pleasure, or to avoid the fate which circumstances render
unavoidable.--And now it is late--retire, Clara, to your bed--think on
what I have said as what necessity has determined, and not my selfish
pleasure."

He held out his hand, and she placed, but not without reluctant terror,
her trembling palm in his. In this manner, and with a sort of mournful
solemnity, as