"If you mean to marry Captain Aylmer, you had better go."
"I am engaged to him."
"Then you had better go."
"But I will not submit myself to her tyranny."
"Let the marriage take place at once, and you will have to submit only to his. I suppose you are prepared for that?"
"I do not know. I do not like tyranny."
Again he stood silent for awhile, looking at her, and then he answered: "I should not tyrannise over you, Clara."
"Oh, Will, Will, do not speak like that. Do not destroy everything."
"What am I to say?"
"What would you say if your sister, your real sister, asked advice in such a strait? If you had a sister, who came to you, and told you all her difficulty, you would advise her. You would not say words to make things worse for her."
"It would be very different."
"But you said you would be my brother."
"How am I to know what you feel for this man? It seems to me that you half hate him, half fear him, and sometimes despise him."
"Hate him!--No, I never hate him."
"Go to him, then, and ask him what you had better do. Don"t ask me."
Then he hurried out of the room, slamming the door behind him. But before he had half gone down the stairs he remembered the ceremony at which he had just been present, and how desolate she was in the world, and he returned to her. "I beg your pardon, Clara," he said, "I am pa.s.sionate; but I must be a beast to show my pa.s.sion to you on such a day as this. If I were you I should accept Lady Aylmer"s invitation,--merely thanking her for it in the ordinary way. I should then go and see how the land lay. That is the advice I should give my sister."
"And I will,--if it is only because you tell me.
"But as for a home,--tell her you have one of your own,--at Belton Castle, from which no one can turn you out, and where no one can intrude on you. This house belongs to you." Then, before she could answer him, he had left the room; and she listened to his heavy quick footsteps as he went across the hall and out of the front door.
He walked across the park and entered the little gate of Colonel Askerton"s garden, as though it were his habit to go to the cottage when he was at Belton. There had been various matters on which the two men had been brought into contact concerning the old squire"s death and the tenancy of the cottage, so that they had become almost intimate. Belton had nothing new that he specially desired to say to Colonel Askerton, whom, indeed, he had seen only a short time before at the funeral; but he wanted the relief of speaking to some one before he returned to the solitude of the inn at Redicote. On this occasion, however, the Colonel was out, and the maid asked him if he would see Mrs. Askerton. When he said something about not troubling her, the girl told him that her mistress wished to speak to him, and then he had no alternative but to allow himself to be shown into the drawing-room.
"I want to see you a minute," said Mrs. Askerton, bowing to him without putting out her hand, "that I might ask you how you find your cousin."
"She is pretty well, I think."
"Colonel Askerton has seen more of her than I have since her father"s death, and he says that she does not bear it well. He thinks that she is ill."
"I do not think her ill. Of course she is not in good spirits."
"No; exactly. How should she be? But he thinks she seems so worn. I hope you will excuse me, Mr. Belton, but I love her so well that I cannot bear to be quite in the dark as to her future. Is anything settled yet?"
"She is going to Aylmer Castle."
"To Aylmer Castle! Is she indeed? At once?"
"Very soon. Lady Aylmer has asked her."
"Lady Aylmer! Then I suppose--"
"You suppose what?" Will Belton asked.
"I did not think she would have gone to Aylmer Castle,--though I dare say it is the best thing she could do. She seemed to me to dislike the Aylmers,--that is, Lady Aylmer,--so much! But I suppose she is right?"
"She is right to go if she likes it."
"She is circ.u.mstanced so cruelly! Is she not? Where else could she go? I do so feel for her. I believe I need hardly tell you, Mr.
Belton, that she would be as welcome here as flowers in May,--but that I do not dare to ask her to come to us." She said this in a low voice, turning her eyes away from him, looking first upon the ground, and then again up at the window,--but still not daring to meet his eye.
"I don"t exactly know about that," said Belton awkwardly.
"You know, I hope, that I love her dearly."
"Everybody does that," said Will.
"You do, Mr. Belton."
"Yes;--I do; just as though she were--my sister."
"And as your sister would you let her come here,--to us?" He sat silent for awhile, thinking, and she waited patiently for his answer.
But she spoke again before he answered her. "I am well aware that you know all my history, Mr. Belton."
"I shouldn"t tell it her, if you mean that, though she were my sister. If she were my wife I should tell her."
"And why your wife?"
"Because then I should be sure it would do no harm."
"Then I find that you can be generous, Mr. Belton. But she knows it all as well as you do."
"I did not tell her."
"Nor did I;--but I should have done so had not Captain Aylmer been before me. And now tell me whether I could ask her to come here."
"It would be useless, as she is going to Aylmer Castle."
"But she is going there simply to find a home,--having no other."
"That is not so, Mrs. Askerton. She has a home as perfectly her own as any woman in the land. Belton Castle is hers, to do what she may please with it. She can live here if she likes it, and n.o.body can say a word to her. She need not go to Aylmer Castle to look for a home."
"You mean you would lend her the house?"
"It is hers."