“But I may hope that Miss Dale will see me,” said Clara.  “We are in sympathy about the boy.”

“Mr. Dale might be seen.  He seems to be of a divided mind with his daughter,” Vernon rejoined.  “She has locked herself up in her room.”

“He is not the only father in that unwholesome predicament,” said Dr Middleton.

“He talks of coming to you, Willoughby.”

“Why to me?” Willoughby chastened his irritation:  “He will be welcome, of course.  It would be better that the boy should come.”

“If there is a chance of your forgiving him,” said Clara.  “Let the Dales know I am prepared to listen to the boy, Vernon.  There can be no necessity for Mr. Dale to drag himself here.”

“How are Mr. Dale and his daughter of a divided mind, Mr. Whitford?” said Clara.

Vernon simulated an uneasiness.  With a vacant gaze that enlarged around Willoughby and was more discomforting than intentness, he replied:  “Perhaps she is unwilling to give him her entire confidence, Miss Middleton.”

“In which respect, then, our situations present their solitary point of unlikeness in resemblance, for I have it in excess,” observed Dr. Middleton.

Clara dropped her eyelids for the wave to pass over.  “It struck me that Miss Dale was a person of the extremest candour.”

“Why should we be prying into the domestic affairs of the Dales?” Willoughby interjected, and drew out his watch, merely for a diversion; he was on tiptoe to learn whether Vernon was as well instructed as Clara, and hung to the view that he could not be, while drenching in the sensation that he was:—­and if so, what were the Powers above but a body of conspirators?  He paid Laetitia that compliment.  He could not conceive the human betrayal of the secret.  Clara’s discovery of it had set his common sense adrift.

“The domestic affairs of the Dales do not concern me,” said Vernon.

“And yet, my friend,” Dr. Middleton balanced himself, and with an air of benevolent slyness the import of which did not awaken Willoughby, until too late, remarked:  “They might concern you.  I will even add, that there is a probability of your being not less than the fount and origin of this division of father and daughter, though Willoughby in the drawingroom last night stands accusably the agent.”

“Favour me, sir, with an explanation,” said Vernon, seeking to gather it from Clara.

Dr Middleton threw the explanation upon Willoughby.

Clara, communicated as much as she was able in one of those looks of still depth which say, Think! and without causing a thought to stir, takes us into the pellucid mind.