s announced. My father shook hands with me rather coldly. I
had hoped he would have said something at parting; but he only bade me
farewell in the simplest and shortest manner. I had rather he would have
spoken to me in anger than restrained himself as he did, to what the
commonest forms of courtesy required. There was but one more slight,
after this, that he could cast on me; and he did not spare it. While my
sister was taking leave of me, he waited at the door of the room to
lead her down stairs, as if he knew by intuition that this was the last
little parting attention which I had hoped to show her myself.

Clara whispered (in such low, trembling tones that I could hardly hear
her):

"Think of what you promised in your study, Basil, whenever you think of
_me:_ I will write often."

As she raised her veil for a moment, and kissed me, I felt on my own
cheek the tears that were falling fast over hers. I followed her and
my father down stairs. When they reached the street, she gave me her
hand--it was cold and powerless. I knew that the fortitude she had
promised to show, was giving way, in spite of all her efforts to
preserve it; so I let her hurry into the carriage without detaining
her by any last words. The next instant she and my father were driven
rapidly from the door.

When I re-entered the house, my watch showed me that I had still an hour
to wait, before it was time to go to North Villa.

Between the different emotions produced by my impressions of the scene I
had just passed through, and my anticipations of the scene that was yet
to come, I suffered in that one hour as much mental conflict as most men
suffer in a life. It seemed as if I were living out all my feelings in
this short interval of delay, and must die at heart when it was over.
My restlessness was a torture to me; and yet I could not overcome it. I
wandered through the house from room to room, stopping nowhere. I took
down book after book from the library, opened them to read, and put them
back on the shelves the next instant. Over and over again I walked to
the window to occupy myself with what was passing in the street; and
each time I could not stay there for one minute together. I went into
the picture-gallery, looked along the walls, and yet knew not what I was
looking at. At last I wandered into my father's study--the only room I
had not yet visited.

A portrait of my mother hung over the fireplace: my eyes turned towards
it, and for t