To say that Clare declined this invitation would be equivalent to saying that a moth of its own accord kept at a safe distance from the glowing flame which enticed it.  As he read the note his heart gave a leap.  He began to wonder and ask himself why he had remained away so long.  Was it not the sheerest folly and absurdity?  What was Eleanor Milbourne to him that he should banish himself on her account from the only pleasant house within a radius of twenty miles?  A man should have some self-respect, he thought.  He should not let every inquisitive fool see when and how and where a shaft has wounded him.  Why should he not go?  A heartache or two additional would not matter in Egypt.  As for Mrs. Lancaster, he could certainly keep at a safe distance from her, even if she had not gone to the White Sulphur, as he hoped to heaven she had.

This devout hope was destined to disappointment.  The first person whom he saw when he entered the well-filled drawing-room of The Willows was the pretty widow, in radiant looks and radiant spirits, not to mention a radiant toilette of the lightest possible and most becoming mourning.  Despite his previous resolutions, Clare found himself gravitating to her side as soon as his respects had been paid to Mrs. Brantley—­a fact which may serve as a small proof of the weakness of man’s resolve, and his general inability to fight against fate, especially when it is embodied in a woman’s bright eyes.

“What have you been doing with yourself?” she asked after the first salutations were over.  “Have you been taking counsel with solitude on the Egyptian question?  Or have you decided like a sensible man to go to the White Sulphur?  Whatever has been the cause of your absence, you have at least been charitable in furnishing us with a topic of conversation.  I scarcely know what we should have done without the ‘Victor Clare disappearance,’ as Mr. Ellis has called it, during the last week.”

“I am sure you ought to be obliged to me, then,” Clare said, flushing and laughing.  “Assuredly I could not have furnished you with a topic of conversation for a whole week if I had been present.”

“Opinion has been divided concerning the mystery of your fate,” she went on.  “One party has maintained that, rushing away in desperation when you heard of Mr. Brent’s arrival, you started the next day for Suez; the other, that you were hanging about the grounds, armed to the teeth, and only waiting an opportunity to dare your rival to deadly combat.”

“How kind one’s friends are, to be sure, especially when they are in the country, and have nothing in particular with which to amuse themselves!”

“But what have you been doing?  I should like to know, if you do not object to telling me.”

“I have been very busy making my final arrangements for leaving the country,” answered he, stretching a point, it must be owned.

“You are really going, then?” she asked after a minute’s silence—­a minute during which she was horribly conscious that her changing countenance might readily have betrayed to any looker-on how deeply she felt this unexpected blow.