‘And your father?’

‘Papa knows nothing of it.’

‘But you will tell him?’

’I do not know.  Poor papa is very ill.  If he were well I would tell him, and he would think as I do.’

‘And your cousin?’

‘You say that he has heard it all.’

’I think so.  Do you know that I remembered him the first moment that I saw him?  But what could I do?  When you mentioned to me my old name, my real name, how could I be honest?  I have been driven to do that which has made honesty to me impossible.  My life has been a lie; and yet how could I help it?  I must live somewhere and how could I live anywhere without deceit?’

‘And yet that is so sad.’

’Sad indeed!  But what could I do?  Of course I was wrong in the beginning.  Though how am I to regret it, when it has given me such a husband as I have?  Ah if you could know it all, I think I think you would forgive me.’

Then by degrees she told it all, and Clara was there for hours listening to her story.  The reader will not care to hear more of it than he has heard.  Nor would Clara have desired any closer revelation; but as it is often difficult to obtain a confidence, so is it impossible to stop it in the midst of its effusion.  Mrs Askerton told the history of her life of her first foolish engagement, her belief, her half-belief, in the man’s reformation, of the miseries which resulted from his vices, of her escape and shame, of her welcome widowhood, and of her second marriage.  And as she told it, she paused at every point to insist on the goodness of him who was now her husband.  ‘I shall tell him this,’ she said at last. ’as I do everything; and then he will know that I have in truth got a friend.’

She asked again and again about Mr Belton, but Clara could only tell her that she knew nothing of her cousin’s knowledge.  Will might have heard it all, but if so he had kept his information to himself.

‘And now what shall you do?’ Mrs Askerton asked of Clara, at length prepared to go.

‘Do? in what way?  I shall do nothing.’

‘But you will write to Captain Aylmer?’

‘Yes I shall write to him.’

‘And about this?’

‘Yes I suppose I must write to him.’

‘And what will you say?’

’That I cannot tell.  I wish I knew what to say.  If it were to his mother I could write my letter easily enough.’

‘And what would you say to her?’

’I would tell her that I was responsible for my own friends.  But I must go now.  Papa will complain that I am so long away.’  Then there was another embrace, and at last Clara found her way out of the house and was alone again in the park.