She had a long morning by herself after Will had started, and then she endeavoured to arrange her thoughts and lay down for herself a line of conduct.  Presuming this story to be true, to what did it amount?  It certainly amounted to very much.  If, in truth, this woman had left her own husband and gone away to live with another man, she had by doing so at any rate while she was doing so fallen in such a way as to make herself unfit for the society of an unmarried young woman who meant to keep her name unblemished before the world.  Clara would not attempt any further unravelling of the case, even in her own mind but on that point she could not allow herself to have a doubt.  Without condemning the unhappy victim, she understood well that she would owe it to all those who held her dear, if not to herself, to eschew any close intimacy with one in such a position.  The rules of the world were too plainly written to allow her to guide herself by any special judgment of her own in such a matter.  But if this friend of hers having been thus unfortunate had since redeemed, or in part redeemed, her position by a second marriage, would it be then imperative upon her to remember the past for ever, and to declare that the stain was indelible?  Clara felt that with a previous knowledge of such a story she would probably have avoided any intimacy with Mrs Askerton.  She would then have been justified in choosing whether such intimacy should or should not exist, and would so have chosen out of deference to the world’s opinion.  But now it was too late for that.  Mrs Askerton had for years been her friend; and Clara had to ask herself this question:  was it now needful did her own feminine purity demand that she should throw her friend over because in past years her life had been tainted by misconduct.

It was clear enough at any rate that this was expected from her nay, imperatively demanded by him who was to be her lord by him to whom her future obedience would be due.  Whatever might be her immediate decision, he would have a right to call upon her to be guided by his judgment as soon as she would become his wife.  And indeed, she felt that he had such right now unless she should decide that no such right should be his, now or ever.  It was still within her power to say that she could not submit herself to such a rule as his but having received his commands she must do that or obey them.  Then she declared to herself, not following the matter out logically, but urged to her decision by sudden impulse, that at any rate she would not obey Lady Aylmer.  She would have nothing to do, in any such matter, with Lady Aylmer.  Lady Aylmer should be no god to her.  That question about the house at Perivale had been very painful to her.  She felt that she could have endured the dreary solitude at Perivale without complaint, if, after her marriage, her husband’s circumstances had made such a mode of living expedient.  But to have been asked to pledge her consent to such