ou;
the letters I wrote, entreating you if but by a line or message to
relieve, my anxiety, remaining unanswered--letters which I was assured
you had received--your sudden intimacy with that hateful Wilford--"

"Stay!" she exclaimed, interrupting me, "let me explain that at once; it
is easy to show you how that is to be accounted for--"

"Indeed, Clara, it is unnecessary," I began.

"If not for your satisfaction, at least for my own, let me explain
how this sudden good understanding with one so lately a stranger to
me arose:" she continued, "Richard Cumberland, on his return, seemed
resolved to throw off all disguise, and determined to make me feel that
I was in his power; his attentions became most intolerable, and all my
endeavours to repulse him appeared but to increase the evil. This went
on till I was obliged to remain in my own room the greater portion of
every day, and actually dreaded the approach of dinner-time, when I knew
I should be forced to endure his society. The arrival of Mr. Fleming,
or Wilford, as you say his real name is, was therefore a great relief to
me. Cumberland, for some reason or other, appears most anxious to keep
on good terms with him--why, I cannot tell, for I am much mistaken if
he does not both hate and fear him. Mr. Wilford, who, whatever his real
character may be, possesses great tact and penetration, and can behave
like a most refined and polished gentleman, appeared to discover by
intuition that Cumberland's attentions were distasteful to me, and
contrived in a thousand different ways to relieve me from them,
always doing so with the most perfect _sang-froid_ and apparent
unconsciousness. Although, from the first moment I saw him, I felt an
instinctive mistrust and fear of him, I could not but feel grateful for
the delicate tact with which he came to my assistance; and as the only
effectual way to distance Richard Cumberland appeared to be conversing
with Mr. Wilford, I can well understand even a more intelligent observer
than my faithful old Peter fancying that I gave him encouragement. I was
~420~~ further induced to admit his society from the fact, that he
never attempted in the slightest degree to take unfair advantage of the
unusual intimacy which circumstances had produced between us. He had
never even alluded to Cumberland's attentions (though he must have been
long aware of them, and of the annoyance they occasioned me) till that
unfortunate morning when the encounter took