’It was so unpleasant so very unpleasant!  I had better speak out the truth at once.  I think that Lady Aylmer ill-used me cruelly.  I do.  No one can talk me out of that conviction.  Of course I am sorry to be driven to say as much to you and I should never have said it, had you not come here.  But when you speak of me and your mother together, I must say what I feel.  Your mother and I, Captain Aylmer, are so opposed to each other, not only in feeling, but in opinions also, that it is impossible that we should be friends impossible that we should not be enemies if we are brought together.’

This she said with great energy, looking intently into his face as she spoke.  He was seated near her, on a chair from which he was leaning over towards her, holding his hat in both hands between his legs.  Now, as he listened to her, he drew his chair still nearer, ridding himself of his hat, which he left upon the carpet, and keeping his eyes upon hers as though he were fascinated.  ’I am sorry to hear you speak like this,’ he said.

‘It is best to say the truth.’

‘But, Clara, if you intend to be my wife’

‘Oh, no that is impossible now.’  ‘What is impossible?’

’Impossible that I should become your wife.  Indeed I have convinced myself that you do not wish it.’

‘But I do wish it.’

’No no.  If you will question your heart about it quietly, you will find that you do not wish it.’

‘You wrong me, Clara.’

‘At any rate it cannot be so.’

‘I will not take that answer from you,’ he said, getting up from his chair, and walking once up and down the room.  Then he returned to it, and repeated his words.  ’I will not take that answer from you.  An engagement such as ours cannot be put aside like an old glove.  You do not mean to tell me that all that has been between us is to mean nothing.’  There was something now like feeling in his tone, something like passion in his gesture, and Clara, though she had no thought of changing her purpose, was becoming unhappy at the idea of his unhappiness.

‘It has meant nothing,’ she said.  ’We have been like children together, playing at being in love.  It is a game from which you will come out scatheless, but I have been scalded.’

‘Scalded!’

‘Well never mind.  I do not mean to complain, and certainly not of you.’

’I have come here all the way from Yorkshire in order that things may be put right between us.’

’You have been very good very good to come, and I will not say that I regret your trouble.  It is best, I think, that we should meet each other once more face to face, so that we may understand each other.  There was no understanding anything during those terrible days at Aylmer Park.’  Then she paused, but as he did not speak at once she went on.  ’I do not blame you for anything that has taken place, but I am quite sure of this that you and I could never be happy together as man and wife.’