Mutually timid, they were of course formally polite, and no plain speaking could have told one another more distinctly that each was defensive.  Clara stood pledged to the fib; packed, scaled and posted; and he had only to ask to have it, supposing that he asked with a voice not exactly peremptory.

She said in her heart, “It is your fault:  you are relentless and you would ruin Crossjay to punish him for devoting himself to me, like the poor thoughtless boy he is! and so I am bound in honour to do my utmost for him.”

The reciprocal devotedness, moreover, served two purposes:  it preserved her from brooding on the humiliation of her lame flight, and flutter back, and it quieted her mind in regard to the precipitate intimacy of her relations with Colonel De Craye.  Willoughby’s boast of his implacable character was to blame.  She was at war with him, and she was compelled to put the case in that light.  Crossjay must be shielded from one who could not spare an offender, so Colonel De Craye quite naturally was called on for his help, and the colonel’s dexterous aid appeared to her more admirable than alarming.

Nevertheless, she would not have answered a direct question falsely.  She was for the fib, but not the lie; at a word she could be disdainful of subterfuges.  Her look said that.  Willoughby perceived it.  She had written him a letter of three lines:  “There were but three”:  and she had destroyed the letter.  Something perchance was repented by her?  Then she had done him an injury!  Between his wrath at the suspicion of an injury, and the prudence enjoined by his abject coveting of her, he consented to be fooled for the sake of vengeance, and something besides.

“Well! here you are, safe; I have you!” said he, with courtly exultation:  “and that is better than your handwriting.  I have been all over the country after you.”

“Why did you?  We are not in a barbarous land,” said Clara.

“Crossjay talks of your visiting a sick child, my love:—­you have changed your dress?”

“You see.”

“The boy declared you were going to that farm of Hoppner’s, and some cottage.  I met at my gates a tramping vagabond who swore to seeing you and the boy in a totally contrary direction.”

“Did you give him money?”

“I fancy so.”

“Then he was paid for having seen me.”

Willoughby tossed his head:  it might be as she suggested; beggars are liars.

“But who sheltered you, my dear Clara?  You had not been heard of at Hoppner’s.”

“The people have been indemnified for their pains.  To pay them more would be to spoil them.  You disperse money too liberally.  There was no fever in the place.  Who could have anticipated such a downpour!  I want to consult Miss Dale on the important theme of a dress I think of wearing at Mrs Mountstuart’s to-night.”

“Do.  She is unerring.”

“She has excellent taste.”