I fear that many ladies will condemn Miss Amedroz when I tell them that she showed this letter to her Cousin Will.  It does not promise well for any of the parties concerned when a young woman with two lovers can bring herself to show the love-letters of him to whom she is engaged to the other lover whom she has refused!  But I have two excuses to put forward in Clara’s defence.  In the first place, Captain Aylmer’s love-letters were not in truth love-letters, but were letters of business; and in the next place, Clara was teaching herself to regard Will Belton as her brother, and to forget that he had ever assumed the part of a lover.

She was so teaching herself, but I cannot say that the lesson was one easily learned; nor had the outrage upon her of which Will had been guilty, and which was described in the last chapter, made the teaching easier.  But she had determined, nevertheless, that it should be so.  When she thought of Will her heart would become very soft towards him; and sometimes, when she thought of Captain Aylmer, her heart would become anything but soft towards him.  Unloving feelings would be very strong within her bosom as she re-read his letters, and remembered that he had not come to her, but had sent her seventy-five pounds to comfort her in her trouble!  Nevertheless, he was to be her husband, and she would do her duty.  What might have happened had Will Belton come to Belton Castle before she had known Frederic Aylmer of that she stoutly resolved that she would never think at all; and consequently the thought was always intruding upon her.

‘You will sleep one night in town, of course?’ said Will.

‘I suppose so.  You know all about it.  I shall do as I’m told.’

’You can’t go down to Yorkshire from here in one day.  Where would you like to stay in London?’

’How on earth should I know?  Ladies do sleep at hotels in London sometimes, I suppose?’

‘Oh yes.  I can write and have rooms ready for you.’

‘Then that difficulty is over,’ said Clara.

But in Belton’s estimation the difficulty was not exactly over.  Captain Aylmer would, of course, be in London that night, and it was a question with Will whether or no Clara was not bound in honour to tell the accursed beast, I am afraid Mr Belton called him in his soliloquies where she would lodge on the occasion.  Or would it suffice that he, Will, should hand her over to the enemy at the station of the Great Northern Railway on the following morning?  All the little intricacies of the question presented themselves to Will’s imagination.  How careful he would be with her, that the inn accommodation should suffice for her comfort!  With what pleasure would he order a little dinner for them two, making something of a gentle fˆte of the occasion!  How sedulously would he wait upon her with those little attentions, amounting almost to worship, with which such men as Will Belton are prone to treat all women in exceptionable