ating for a moment as it drove off; then, instead of
entering the house, walked off quickly in the same direction.

Clara had stood all the time like a statue on the stairs, waiting to
see if she were wanted, and gazing intently, with her fingers clasped.
When both were gone she drew a long breath, and nodded with her head,
whispering to herself, in a grave and critical voice--'That is love!'

She did not see Fitzjocelyn again till nearly dinner-time; and, as he
caught her anxious interrogating eye, he came to her and said, very
low, 'I was not let in; Miss Ponsonby was engaged. Miss Mary lying
down--I believe they never told her I was there.'

'It is all that aunt--horrid woman!'

'Don't talk of it now. I _will_ see her to-morrow.'

Clara grieved for him whenever she saw him called on to exert himself
to talk; and she even guarded him from the sallies of his young
cousins. Once, when much music and talk was going on, he came and sat
by her, and made her tell him how fondly and affectionately she had
parted with her schoolfellows; and how some of her old foes had become,
as she hoped, friends for life; but she saw his eye fixed and absent
even while she spoke, and she left off suddenly. 'Go on,' he said, 'I
like to hear;' and with a manifest effort he bent his mind to attend.

'Oh!' thought Clara, as she went up that night--'why will the days one
most expects to be happy turn out so much otherwise? However, he will
manage to tell me all about it when he and his father take me home
to-morrow.'

CHAPTER IV.

OUTWARD BOUND.

The voice which I did more esteem
Than music in her sweetest key--
Those eyes which unto me did seem
More comfortable than the day--
Those now by me, as they have been,
Shall never more be heard or seen.
GEORGE WITHER.

In suspense and impatience, Fitzjocelyn awaited the end of his father's
breakfast, that he might hasten to learn what ailed Mary. The post came
in, vexing him at first merely as an additional delay, but presently a
sound of dissatisfaction attracted his notice to the foreign air of two
envelopes which had been forwarded from home.

'Hem!' said the Earl, gravely, 'I am afraid this fellow Ponsonby will
give us some trouble.'

'Then Mary had heard from him!' cried Louis. 'She was keeping it from
me, not to spoil the day. I must go to her this moment--'but pausing
again, 'What is it? He cannot have had my letter!