He knew well what would have been his right course, and yet he did not follow it.  Let him but once communicate to Lady Ongar the fact of his engagement, and the danger would be over, though much, perhaps, of the misery might remain.  Let him write to her, and mention the fact, bringing it up as some little immaterial accident, and she would understand what he meant.  But this he abstained from doing.  Though he swore to himself that he would not touch the dram, he would not dash down the full glass that was held to his lips.  He went about the town very wretchedly, looking for the Count, and regarding himself as a man specially marked out for sorrow by the cruel hand of misfortune.  Lady Ongar, in the meantime, was expecting him, and was waxing angry and becoming bitter toward him because he came not.

Sir Hugh Clavering was now in London, and with him was his brother Archie.  Sir Hugh was a man who strained an income, that was handsome and sufficient for a country gentleman, to the very utmost, wanting to get out of it more than it could be made to give.  He was not a man to be in debt, or indulge himself with present pleasures to be paid for out of the funds of future years.  He was possessed of a worldly wisdom which kept him from that folly, and taught him to appreciate fully the value of independence.  But he was ever remembering how many shillings there are in a pound, and how many pence in a shilling.  He had a great eye to discount, and looked closely into his bills.  He searched for cheap shops; and some men began to say of him that he had found a cheap establishment for such wines as he did not drink himself!  In playing cards and in betting, he was very careful, never playing high, never risking much, but hoping to turn something by the end of the year, and angry with himself if he had not done so.  An unamiable man he was, but one whose heir would probably not quarrel with him—­if only he would die soon enough.  He had always had a house in town—­a moderate house in Berkeley Square, which belonged to him, and had belonged to his father before him.  Lady Clavering had usually lived there during the season; or, as had latterly been the case, during only a part of the season.  And now it had come to pass, in this year, that Lady Clavering was not to come to London at all, and that Sir Hugh was meditating whether the house in Berkeley Square might not be let.  The arrangement would make the difference of considerably more than a thousand a year to him.  For himself, he would take lodgings.  He had no idea of giving up London in the Spring and early Summer.  But why keep up a house in Berkeley Square, as Lady Clavering did not use it?