he same
calculation as to her cousin Will,--though in that calculation, as we
know, she was wrong. These two days had been very desolate with her,
and she had begun to look forward to Mrs. Askerton's coming,--when
instead of that there came a messenger with a letter from the
cottage.

"You can do as you like, my dear," Colonel Askerton had said on the
previous evening to his wife. He had listened to all she had been
saying without taking his eyes from off his newspaper, though she had
spoken with much eagerness.

"But that is not enough. You should say more to me than that."

"Now I think you are unreasonable. For myself, I do not care how this
matter goes; nor do I care one straw what any tongues may say. They
cannot reach me, excepting so far as they may reach me through you."

"But you should advise me."

"I always do,--copiously, when I think that I know better than you;
but in this matter I feel so sure that you know better than I, that I
don't wish to suggest anything." Then he went on with his newspaper,
and she sat for a while looking at him, as though she expected that
something more would be said. But nothing more was said, and she was
left entirely to her own guidance.

Since the days in which her troubles had come upon Mrs. Askerton,
Clara Amedroz was the first female friend who had come near her
to comfort her, and she was very loth to abandon such comfort.
There had, too, been something more than comfort, something almost
approaching to triumph, when she found that Clara had clung to her
with affection after hearing the whole story of her life. Though
her conscience had not pricked her while she was exercising all her
little planned deceits, she had not taken much pleasure in them. How
should any one take pleasure in such work? Many of us daily deceive
our friends, and are so far gone in deceit that the deceit alone is
hardly painful to us. But the need of deceiving a friend is always
painful. The treachery is easy; but to be treacherous to those
we love is never easy,--never easy, even though it be so common.
There had been a double delight to this poor woman in the near
neighbourhood of Clara Amedroz since there had ceased to be any
necessity for falsehood on her part. But now, almost before her joy
had commenced, almost before she had realised the sweetness of her
triumph, had come upon her this task of doing that herself which
Clara in her generosity had refused to do. "I have made my bed and I