“That explains Lady Busshe!” exclaimed Laetitia.

“Dear, dear friend,” said Clara.  “Why—­I presume on your tenderness for me; but let me:  to-morrow I go—­why will you reject your happiness?  Those kind good ladies are deeply troubled.  They say your resolution is inflexible; you resist their entreaties and your father’s.  Can it be that you have any doubt of the strength of this attachment?  I have none.  I have never had a doubt that it was the strongest of his feelings.  If before I go I could see you . . . both happy, I should be relieved, I should rejoice.”

Laetitia said, quietly:  “Do you remember a walk we had one day together to the cottage?”

Clara put up her hands with the motion of intending to stop her ears.

“Before I go!” said she.  “If I might know this was to be, which all desire, before I leave, I should not feel as I do now.  I long to see you happy . . . him, yes, him too.  Is it like asking you to pay my debt?  Then, please!  But, no; I am not more than partly selfish on this occasion.  He has won my gratitude.  He can be really generous.”

“An Egoist?”

“Who is?”

“You have forgotten our conversation on the day of our walk to the cottage?”

“Help me to forget it—­that day, and those days, and all those days!  I should be glad to think I passed a time beneath the earth, and have risen again.  I was the Egoist.  I am sure, if I had been buried, I should not have stood up seeing myself more vilely stained, soiled, disfigured—­oh!  Help me to forget my conduct, Laetitia.  He and I were unsuited—­and I remember I blamed myself then.  You and he are not:  and now I can perceive the pride that can be felt in him.  The worst that can be said is that he schemes too much.”

“Is there any fresh scheme?” said Laetitia.

The rose came over Clara’s face.

“You have not heard?  It was impossible, but it was kindly intended.  Judging by my own feeling at this moment, I can understand his.  We love to see our friends established.”

Laetitia bowed.  “My curiosity is piqued, of course.”

“Dear friend, to-morrow we shall be parted.  I trust to be thought of by you as a little better in grain than I have appeared, and my reason for trusting it is that I know I have been always honest—­a boorish young woman in my stupid mad impatience:  but not insincere.  It is no lofty ambition to desire to be remembered in that character, but such is your Clara, she discovers.  I will tell you.  It is his wish . . . his wish that I should promise to give my hand to Mr. Whitford.  You see the kindness.”

Laetitia’s eyes widened and fixed: 

“You think it kindness?”

“The intention.  He sent Mr. Whitford to me, and I was taught to expect him.”

“Was that quite kind to Mr. Whitford?”

“What an impression I must have made on you during that walk to the cottage, Laetitia!  I do not wonder; I was in a fever.”