"And he is so far from well. Of course you have not seen him since I have been gone."
"No; we never see him unless he comes up to the gate there." Then there was another pause for a moment. "And what about Captain Aylmer?" asked Mrs. Askerton.
"Yes; that is all. What more should there be? The poor old house at Perivale will be shut up, I suppose."
"I don't care about the old house much, as it is not to be your house."
"No;--it is not to be my house certainly."
"There were two ways in which it might have become yours."
"Though there were ten ways, none of those ways have come my way," said Clara.
"Of course I know that you are so close that though there were anything to tell you would not tell it."
"I think I would tell you anything that was proper to be told; but now there is nothing proper,--or improper."
"Was it proper or improper when Mr. Belton made an offer to you,--as I knew he would do, of course; as I told you that he would? Was that so improper that it could not be told?"
Clara was aware that the tell-tale colour in her face at once took from her the possibility of even pretending that the allegation was untrue, and that in any answer she might give she must acknowledge the fact. "I do not think," she said, "that it is considered fair to gentlemen to tell such stories as that."
"Then I can only say that the young ladies I have known are generally very unfair."
"Who told me? My maid. Of course she got it from yours. Those things are always known."
"Poor Will, indeed. He is coming here again, I hear, almost immediately, and it needn't be 'poor Will' unless you like it. But as for me, I am not going to be an advocate in his favour. I tell you fairly that I did not like what little I saw of poor Will."
"You should teach him to be a little more courteous in his demeanour to ladies; that is all. I will tell you something else, too, about poor Will--but not now. Some other day I will tell you something of your cousin Will."
Clara did not care to ask any questions as to this something that was to be told, and therefore took her leave and went away.
MR. WILLIAM BELTON TAKES A WALK IN THE COUNTRY.
Clara Amedroz had made one great mistake about her cousin, Will Belton, when she came to the conclusion that she might accept his proffered friendship without any apprehension that the friend would become a lover; and she made another, equally great, when she convinced herself that his love had been as short-lived as it had been eager. Throughout his journey back to Plaistow, he had thought of nothing else but his love, and had resolved to persevere, telling himself sometimes that he might perhaps be successful, and feeling sure at other times that he would encounter renewed sorrow and permanent disappointment,--but equally resolved in either mood that he would persevere. Not to persevere in pursuit of any desired object,--let the object be what it might,--was, to his thinking, unmanly, weak, and destructive of self-respect. He would sometimes say of himself, joking with other men, that if he did not succeed in this or that thing, he could never speak to himself again. To no man did he talk of his love in such a strain as this; but there was a woman to whom he spoke of it; and though he could not joke on such a matter, the purport of what he said showed the same feeling. To be finally rejected, and to put up with such rejection, would make him almost contemptible in his own eyes.