‘I hope it may; but long or short, it is better so.’

‘I think it is, my dear; I think it is.  I think it is my duty.’

It must be understood that Captain Aylmer was member for Perivale on the Low Church interest, and that, therefore, when at Perivale he was decidedly a Low Churchman.  I am not aware that the peculiarity stuck to him very closely at Aylmer Castle, in Yorkshire, or among his friends in London; but there was no hypocrisy in this, as the world goes.  Women in such matters are absolutely false if they be not sincere; but men, with political views, and with much of their future prospects in jeopardy also, are allowed to dress themselves differently for different scenes.  Whatever be the peculiar interest on which a man goes into Parliament, of course he has to live up to that in his own borough.  Whether malt, the franchise, or teetotalism be his rallying point, of course he is full of it when among his constituents.  But it is not desirable that he should be full of it also at his club.  Had Captain Aylmer become Prime Minister, he would no doubt have made Low Church bishops.  It was the side to which he had taken himself in that matter not without good reasons.  And he could say a sharp word or two in season about vestments; he was strong against candles, and fought for his side fairly well.  No one had good right to complain of Captain Aylmer as being insincere; but had his aunt known the whole history of her nephew’s life, I doubt whether she would have made him her heir thinking that in doing so she was doing the best for the good cause.

The whole history of her niece’s life she did know, and she knew that Clara was not with her, heart and soul.  Had Clara left the old woman in doubt on this subject, she would have been a hypocrite.  Captain Aylmer did not often spend a Sunday at Perivale, but when he did, he went to church three times, and submitted himself to the yoke.  He was thinking of the borough votes quite as much as of his aunt’s money, and was carrying on his business after the fashion of men But Clara found herself compelled to maintain some sort of a fight, though she also went to church three times on Sunday.  And there was another reason why Mrs Winterfield thought it right to mention Captain Aylmer’s name to her niece on this occasion.

‘I had hoped’, she said, ’that it might make no difference in what way my money was left.’

Clara well understood what this meant, as will, probably, the reader also.  ‘I can’t say but what it will make a difference,’ she answered, smiling; ’but I shall always think that you have done right.  Why should I stand in Captain Aylmer’s way?’

‘I had hoped your ways might have been the same,’ said the old lady, fretfully.

‘But they cannot be the same.’