‘I have never said that I have not been a fool,’ said Clara.

’You have made a mistake as young women will do sometimes, even when they are as prudent and circumspect as you are and now you don’t quite like the task of putting it right.’

It was all true, and Clara knew that it was true.  The putting right of mistakes is never pleasant; and in this case it was so unpleasant that she could not bring herself to acknowledge that it must be done.  And yet, I think that, by this time, she was aware of the necessity.

CHAPTER XXXI

TAKING POSSESSION

‘I want her to have it all,’ said William Belton to Mr Green, the lawyer, when they came to discuss the necessary arrangements for the property.

‘But that would be absurd.’

’Never mind.  It is what I wish.  I suppose a man may do what he likes with his own.’

‘She won’t take it,’ said the lawyer.

‘She must take it, if you manage the matter properly,’ said Will.

‘I don’t suppose it will make much difference,’ said the lawyer ’now that Captain Aylmer is out of the running.’

’I know nothing about that.  Of course I am very glad that he should be out of the running, as you call it.  He is a bad sort of fellow, and I didn’t want him to have the property.  But all that has had nothing to do with it.  I’m not doing it because I think she is ever to be my wife.’

>From this the reader will understand that Belton was still fidgeting himself and the lawyer about the estate when he passed through London.  The matter in dispute, however, was so important that he was induced to seek the advice of others besides Mr Green, and at last was brought to the conclusion that it was his paramount duty to become Belton of Belton.  There seemed in the minds of all these councillors to be some imperative and almost imperious requirement that the acres should go back to a man of his name.  Now, as there was no one else of the family who could stand in his way, he had no alternative but to become Belton of Belton.  He would, however, sell his estate in Norfolk, and raise money for endowing Clara with commensurate riches.  Such was his own plan but having fallen among counsellors he would not exactly follow his own plan, and at last submitted to an arrangement in accordance with which an annuity of eight hundred pounds a year was to be settled upon Clara, and this was to lie as a charge upon the estate in Norfolk.

‘It seems to me to be very shabby,’ said William Belton.

‘It seems to me to be very extravagant,’ said the leader among the counsellors.  ‘She is net entitled to sixpence.’

But at last the arrangement as above described was the one to which they all assented.

When Belton reached the house which was now his own he found no one there but his sister.  Clara was at the cottage.  As he had been told that she was to return there, he had no reason to be annoyed.  But, nevertheless, he was annoyed, or rather discontented, and had not been a quarter of an hour about the place before he declared his intention to go and seek her.