e with you. All the women
will be: excepting, of course, Lady Busshe, whose pride is in prophecy;
and she will soon be too glad to swell the host. There, my friend, your
sincerest and oldest admirer congratulates you. I could not contain
myself; I was compelled to pour forth. And now I must go and be talked
to by Dr. Middleton. How does he take it? They leave?"

"He is perfectly well," said Willoughby, aloud, quite distraught.

She acknowledged his just correction of her for running on to an
extreme in low-toned converse, though they stood sufficiently isolated
from the others. These had by this time been joined by Colonel De
Craye, and were all chatting in a group--of himself, Willoughby
horribly suspected.

Clara was gone from him! Gone! but he remembered his oath and vowed it
again: not to Horace de Craye! She was gone, lost, sunk into the world
of waters of rival men, and he determined that his whole force should
be used to keep her from that man, the false friend who had supplanted
him in her shallow heart, and might, if he succeeded, boast of having
done it by simply appearing on the scene.

Willoughby intercepted Mrs. Mountstuart as she was passing over to Dr
Middleton. "My dear lady! spare me a minute."

De Craye sauntered up, with a face of the friendliest humour:

"Never was man like you, Willoughby, for shaking new patterns in a
kaleidoscope."

"Have you turned punster, Horace?" Willoughby replied, smarting to find
yet another in the demon secret, and he draw Dr. Middleton two or three
steps aside, and hurriedly begged him to abstain from prosecuting the
subject with Clara.

"We must try to make her happy as we best can, sir. She may have her
reasons--a young lady's reasons!" He laughed, and left the Rev. Doctor
considering within himself under the arch of his lofty frown of
stupefaction.

De Craye smiled slyly and winningly as he shadowed a deep droop on the
bend of his head before Clara, signifying his absolute devotion to her
service, and this present good fruit for witness of his merits.

She smiled sweetly though vaguely. There was no concealment of their
intimacy.

"The battle is over," Vernon said quietly, when Willoughby had walked
some paces beside Mrs. Mountstuart, adding: "You may expect to see Mr.
Dale here. He knows."

Vernon and Clara exchanged one look, hard on his part, in contrast with
her softness, and he proceeded to the house. De Craye waited for a word
or a promising look.