"Yes, a good deal of her."

"Then you know how really pretty she is. Well, I spent three weeks at
it; regular hard work the entire time, you know, no breathing-space
allowed, as she never refuses an invitation, thinks nothing of three
balls in one night, and insisted on my dancing attendance on her
everywhere. I never suffered so much in my life; and when at last I
gave in from sheer exhaustion, I found my clothes no longer fitted me.
I was worn to a skeleton from loss of sleep, the heavy strain on my
mental powers, and the meek endurance of her ladyship's ill tempers."

"Lady Fanny is one woman, Clarissa Peyton is quite another. How could
you fail to be happy with Clarissa? Her sweetness, her grace of mind
and body, her beauty, would keep you captive even against your will."

Dorian pauses for a moment or two, and then says, very gently, as
though sorry to spoil the old man's cherished plan,--

"It is altogether impossible. Clarissa has no heart to give me."

Sartoris is silent. A vague suspicion of what now appears a certainty
has for some time oppressed and haunted him. At this moment he is
sadly realizing the emptiness of all his dreaming. Presently he says,
slowly,--

"Are you quite sure of this?"

"As certain as I can be without exactly hearing it from her own lips."

"Is it Horace?"

"Yes; it is Horace," says Branscombe, quietly.

CHAPTER VI.

"Tread softly; bow the head,--
In reverent silence bow,
No passing bell doth toll,
Yet an immortal soul
Is passing now."--CAROLINE SOUTHEY.

A little room, scantily but neatly furnished. A low bed. A dying man.
A kneeling girl,--half child, half woman,--with a lovely, miserable
face, and pretty yellow hair.

It was almost dusk, and the sound of the moaning sea without, rising
higher and hoarser as the tide rushes in, comes like a wail of
passionate agony into the silent room.

The rain patters dismally against the window-panes. The wind--that all
day long has been sullen and subdued--is breaking forth into a fury
long suppressed, and, dashing through the little town, on its way to
the angry sea, makes the casements rattle noisily and the tall trees
sway and bend beneath its touch. Above, in the darkening heavens, gray
clouds are scurrying madly to and fro.

"Georgie," whispers a faint voice from out the gathering gloom, "are
you still there?"

"Yes, dear, I am here, quite near to you. What is it?"

"Sit where I can see you, ch