The winter afternoon was growing dim with the evening darkness, as I drove up to the Hall.  Snow on the ground, in the country, has always a cheerful look to me.  I could have wished to see it on the day of my arrival at home; but there had been a thaw for the last week—­mud and water were all about me—­a drizzling rain was falling—­a raw, damp wind was blowing—­a fog was rising, as the evening stole on—­and the ancient leafless elms in the park avenue groaned and creaked above my head drearily, as I approached the house.

My father received me with more ceremony than I liked.  I had known, from a boy, what it meant when he chose to be only polite to his own son.  What construction he had put on my long absence and my persistence in keeping my secret from him, I could not tell; but it was evident that I had lost my usual place in his estimation, and lost it past regaining merely by a week’s visit.  The estrangement between us, which my sister had feared, had begun already.

I had been chilled by the desolate aspect of nature, as I approached the Hall; my father’s reception of me, when I entered the house, increased the comfortless and melancholy impressions produced on my mind; it required all the affectionate warmth of Clara’s welcome, all the pleasure of hearing her whisper her thanks, as she kissed me, for my readiness in following her advice, to restore my equanimity.  But even then, when the first hurry and excitement of meeting had passed away, in spite of her kind words and looks, there was something in her face which depressed me.  She seemed thinner, and her constitutional paleness was more marked than usual.  Cares and anxieties had evidently oppressed her—­was I the cause of them?

The dinner that evening proceeded very heavily and gloomily.  My father only talked on general and commonplace topics, as if a mere acquaintance had been present.  When my sister left us, he too quitted the room, to see some one who had arrived on business.  I had no heart for the company of the wine bottles, so I followed Clara.

At first, we only spoke of her occupations since she had been in the country; I was unwilling, and she forbore, to touch on my long stay in London, or on my father’s evident displeasure at my protracted absence.  There was a little restraint between us, which neither had the courage to break through.  Before long, however, an accident, trifling enough in itself, obliged me to be more candid; and enabled her to speak unreservedly on the subject nearest to her heart.

I was seated opposite to Clara, at the fire-place, and was playing with a favourite dog which had followed me into the room.  While I was stooping towards the animal, a locket containing some of Margaret’s hair, fell out of its place in my waistcoat, and swung towards my sister by the string which attached it round my neck.  I instantly hid it again; but not before Clara, with a woman’s quickness, had detected the trinket as something new, and drawn the right inference, as to the use to which I devoted it.