Of course they had to wait there for half an hour, and of course the waiting was very tedious.  To Will it was very tedious indeed, as he was not by nature good at waiting.  To Clara, who on this occasion sat perfectly still in the waiting-room, with her toes on the fender before the fire, the evil of the occasion was not so severe.  ’The man would take two hours for the journey, though I told him an hour and a half would be enough,’ said Will, querulously.

‘But we might have had an accident.’

‘An accident!  What accident?  People don’t have accidents every day.’

At last the train came and they started.  Clara, though she had with her her best friend I may almost say the friend whom in the world she loved the best did not have an agreeable journey.  Belton would not talk; but as he made no attempt at reading, Clara did not like to have recourse to the book which she had in her travelling-bag.  He sat opposite to her, opening the window and shutting it as he thought she might like it, but looking wretched and forlorn.  At Swindon he brightened up for a moment under the excitement of getting her something to eat, but that relaxation lasted only for a few minutes.  Alter that he relapsed again into silence till the train had passed Slough and he knew that in another half-hour they would be in London.  Then he leant over her and spoke.

’This will probably be the last opportunity I shall have of saying a few words to you alone.’

‘I don’t know that at all, Will.’

’It will be the last for a long time at any rate.  And as I have got something to say, I might as well say it now.  I have thought a great deal about the property the Belton estate, I mean; and I don’t intend to take it as mine.’

’That is sheer nonsense, Will.  You must take it, as it is yours, and can’t belong to any one else.’

’I have thought it over, and I am quite sure that all the business of the entail was wrong radically wrong from first to last.  You are to understand that my special regard for you has nothing whatever to do with it.  I should do the same thing if I felt that I hated you.’

‘Don’t hate me, Will!’

’You know what I mean.  I think the entail was all wrong, and I shan’t take advantage of it.  It’s not common sense that I should have everything because of poor Charley’s misfortune.’

’But it seems to me that it does not depend upon you or upon me, or upon anybody.  It is yours by law, you know.’

’And therefore it won’t be sufficient for me to give it up without making it yours by law also which I intend to do.  I shall stay in town tomorrow and give instructions to Mr Green.  I have thought it proper to tell you this now, in order that you may mention it to Captain Aylmer.’

They were leaning over in the carriage one towards the other; her face had been slightly turned away from him; but now she slowly raised her eyes till they met his, and looking into the depth of them, and seeing there all his love and all his suffering, and the great nobility of his nature, her heart melted within her.  Gradually, as her tears came would come, in spite of all her constraint, she again turned her face towards the window.  ‘I can’t talk now,’ she said, ‘indeed I can’t.’