“I can’t, unless you do.”

“I will, then:  I will try.”

She held the glass, attempted, and was baffled by the reek of it.

“Try:  you can do anything,” said Vernon.

“Now that you find me here, Mr. Whitford!  Anything for myself it would seem, and nothing to save a friend.  But I will really try.”

“It must be a good mouthful.”

“I will try.  And you will finish the glass?”

“With your permission, if you do not leave too much.”

They were to drink out of the same glass; and she was to drink some of this infamous mixture:  and she was in a kind of hotel alone with him:  and he was drenched in running after her:—­all this came of breaking loose for an hour!

“Oh! what a misfortune that it should be such a day, Mr. Whitford!”

“Did you not choose the day?”

“Not the weather.”

“And the worst of it is, that Willoughby will come upon Crossjay wet to the bone, and pump him and get nothing but shufflings, blank lies, and then find him out and chase him from the house.”

Clara drank immediately, and more than she intended.  She held the glass as an enemy to be delivered from, gasping, uncertain of her breath.

“Never let me be asked to endure such a thing again!”

“You are unlikely to be running away from father and friends again.”

She panted still with the fiery liquid she had gulped:  and she wondered that it should belie its reputation in not fortifying her, but rendering her painfully susceptible to his remarks.

“Mr. Whitford, I need not seek to know what you think of me.”

“What I think?  I don’t think at all; I wish to serve you if I can.”

“Am I right in supposing you a little afraid of me?  You should not be.  I have deceived no one.  I have opened my heart to you, and am not ashamed of having done so.”

“It is an excellent habit, they say.”

“It is not a habit with me.”

He was touched, and for that reason, in his dissatisfaction with himself, not unwilling to hurt.  “We take our turn, Miss Middleton.  I’m no hero, and a bad conspirator, so I am not of much avail.”

“You have been reserved—­but I am going, and I leave my character behind.  You condemned me to the poison-bowl; you have not touched it yourself”

“In vino veritas:  if I do I shall be speaking my mind.”

“Then do, for the sake of mind and body.”

“It won’t be complimentary.”

“You can be harsh.  Only say everything.”

“Have we time?”

They looked at their watches.

“Six minutes,” Clara said.

Vernon’s had stopped, penetrated by his total drenching.

She reproached herself.  He laughed to quiet her.  “My dies solemnes are sure to give me duckings; I’m used to them.  As for the watch, it will remind me that it stopped when you went.”