’If it will comfort you to say so, you may say it.  If you do not perceive that the mistake made between us has been as much your mistake as mine, and has injured me more than it has injured you, I will not remind you of it will never remind you of it after this.’

‘But there has been no mistake and there shall be no injury.’

’Ah, Captain Aylmer you do not understand; you cannot understand.  I would not for worlds reproach you; but do you think I suffered nothing from your mother?’

‘And must I pay for her sins?’

’There shall be no paying, no punishment, and no reproaches.  There shall be none at least from me.  But do not think that I speak in anger or in pride I will not marry into Lady Aylmer’s family.’

‘This is too bad too bad!  After all that is past, it is too bad!’

’What can I say?  Would you advise me to do that which would make us both wretched?’

’It would not make me wretched.  It would make me happy.  It would satisfy me altogether.’

’It cannot be, Captain Aylmer.  It cannot be.  When I speak to you in that way, will you not let it be final?’

He paused a moment before he spoke again, and then he turned sharp upon her.  ‘Tell me this, Clara; do you love me?  Have you ever loved me?’ She did not answer him, but stood there, listening quietly to his accusations.  ’You have never loved me, and yet you have allowed yourself to say that you did.  Is not that true?’ Still she did not answer.  ‘I ask you whether that is not true?’ But though he asked her, and paused for an answer, looking the while full into her face, yet she did not speak.  And now I suppose you will become your cousin’s wife?’ he said.  ‘It will suit you to change, and to say that you love him.’

Then at last she spoke.  ’I did not think that you would have treated me in this way, Captain Aylmer!  I did not expect that you would insult me!’

‘I have not insulted you.’

’But your manner to me makes my task easier than I could have hoped it to be.  You asked me whether I ever loved you?  I once thought that I did so; and so thinking, told you, without reserve, all my feeling.  When I came to find that I had been mistaken, I conceived myself bound by my engagement to rectify my own error as best I could; and I resolved, wrongly as I now think, very wrongly that I could learn as your wife to love you.  Then came circumstances which showed me that a release would be good for both of us, and which justified me in accepting it.  No girl could be bound by any engagement to a man who looked on and saw her treated in his own home, by his own mother, as you saw me treated at Aylmer Park.  I claim to be released myself, and I know that this release is as good for you as it is for me.’

‘I am the best judge of that.’

’For myself at any rate I will judge.  For myself I have decided.  Now I have answered the questions which you asked me as to my love for yourself.  To that other question which you have thought fit to put to me about my cousin, I refuse to give any answer whatsoever.’  Then, having said so much, she walked out of the room, closing the door behind her, and left him standing there alone.