‘Is there no clergyman in the parish?’

‘He lives a long way off.  The message had to be sent at once.’

’Are there no servants in the house?  It looks it looks .  But I am the last person in the world to form a harsh judgment of a young woman at such a moment as this.  What did she say in her letter, Fred?’

Captain Aylmer had devoted two hours of consideration to the letter before the telegram had come to relieve his mind by a fresh subject, and in those two hours he had not been able to extract much of comfort out of the document.  It was, as he felt, a stubborn, stiff-necked, disobedient, almost rebellious letter.  It contained a manifest defiance of his mother, and exhibited doctrines of most questionable morality.  It had become to him a matter of doubt whether he could possibly marry a woman who could entertain such ideas and write such a letter.  If the doubt was to be decided in his own mind against Clara, he had better show the letter at once to his mother, and allow her ladyship to fight the battle for him a task which, as he well knew, her ladyship would not be slow to undertake.  But he had not succeeded in answering the question satisfactorily to himself when the telegram arrived and diverted all his thoughts.  Now that Mr Amedroz was dead, the whole thing might be different.  Clara would come away from Belton and Mrs Askerton, and begin life, as it were, afresh It seemed as though in such an emergency she ought to have another chance; and therefore he did not hasten to pronounce his judgment.  Lady Aylmer also felt something of this, and forbore to press her question when it was not answered.

‘She will have to leave Belton now, I suppose?’ said Sir Anthony.

‘The property will belong to a distant cousin a Mr William Belton.’

‘And where will she go?’ said Lady Aylmer.  ’I suppose she has no place that she can call her home?’

‘Would it not be a good thing to ask her here?’ said Belinda.  Such a question as that was very rash on the part of Miss Aylmer.  In the first place, the selection of guests for Aylmer Park was rarely left to her; and in this special case she should have understood that such a proposal should have been fully considered by Lady Aylmer before it reached Frederic’s ears.

‘I think it would be a very good plan,’ said Captain Aylmer, generously.

Lady Aylmer shook her head.  ’I should like much to know what she has said about that unfortunate connexion before I offer to take her by the hand myself.  I’m sure Fred will feel that I ought to do so.’

But Fred retreated from the room without showing the letter.  He retreated from the room and betook himself to solitude, that he might again endeavour to make up his mind as to what he would do.  He put on his hat and his great-coat and gloves, and went off without his luncheon that he might consider it all.  Clara Amedroz had now no home and, indeed, very little means of providing one.  If he intended