Miss Ada looked at him sorrowfully, and continued smoothing down his hair, and inundating his temples with Cologne; at last she ventured to inquire, “How do matters progress with you and Miss Bates?  Clary, you have lost your heart there!”

“Too true,” he replied, hurriedly; “and what is more—­little Birdie (I call her little Birdie) has lost hers too.  Aunt Ada, we are engaged!”

“With her parents’ consent?” she asked.

“Yes, with her parents’ consent; we are to be married in the coming winter.”

“Then they know all, of course—­they know you are coloured?” observed she.

“They know all!” cried he, starting up. “Who said they did—­who told them?—­tell me that, I say!  Who has dared to tell them I am a coloured man?”

“Hush, Clarence, hush!” replied she, attempting to soothe him.  “I do not know that any one has informed them; I only inferred so from your saying you were engaged.  I thought you had informed them yourself.  Don’t you remember you wrote that you should?—­and I took it for granted that you had.”

“Oh! yes, yes; so I did!  I fully intended to, but found myself too great a coward. I dare not—­I cannot risk losing her.  I am fearful that if she knew it she would throw me off for ever.”

“Perhaps not, Clarence—­if she loves you as she should; and even if she did, would it not be better that she should know it now, than have it discovered afterwards, and you both be rendered miserable for life.”

“No, no, Aunt Ada—­I cannot tell her!  It must remain a secret until after our marriage; then, if they find it out, it will be to their interest to smooth the matter over, and keep quiet about it.”

“Clary, Clary—­that is not honourable!”

“I know it—­but how can I help it?  Once or twice I thought of telling her, but my heart always failed me at the critical moment.  It would kill me to lose her.  Oh!  I love her, Aunt Ada,” said he, passionately—­“love her with all the energy and strength of my father’s race, and all the doating tenderness of my mother’s.  I could have told her long ago, before my love had grown to its present towering strength, but craft set a seal upon my lips, and bid me be silent until her heart was fully mine, and then nothing could part us; yet now even, when sure of her affections, the dread that her love would not stand the test, compels me to shrink more than ever from the disclosure.”

“But, Clarence, you are not acting generously; I know your conscience does not approve your actions.”

“Don’t I know that?” he answered, almost fiercely; “yet I dare not tell—­I must shut this secret in my bosom, where it gnaws, gnaws, gnaws, until it has almost eaten my heart away.  Oh, I’ve thought of that, time and again; it has kept me awake night after night, it haunts me at all hours; it is breaking down my health and strength—­wearing my very life out of me; no escaped galley-slave ever felt more than I do, or lived in more constant fear of detection:  and yet I must nourish this tormenting secret, and keep it growing in my breast until it has crowded out every honourable and manly feeling; and then, perhaps, after all my sufferings and sacrifice of candour and truth, out it will come at last, when I least expect or think of it.”