mily
secret: I know better now."

"Exactly. The motive which you can now appreciate is the motive that
leads us to the point. The young lady herself (as I have heard from
the elder Mr. Clare, to whom I am indebted for my knowledge of the
circumstances in detail) confessed her attachment to her father, and
innocently touched him to the quick by a chance reference to his own
early life. He had a long conversation with Mrs. Vanstone, at which
they both agreed that Mr. Clare must be privately informed of the
truth, before the attachment between the two young people was allowed to
proceed further. It was painful in the last degree, both to husband
and wife, to be reduced to this alternative. But they were resolute,
honorably resolute, in making the sacrifice of their own feelings; and
Mr. Vanstone betook himself on the spot to Mr. Clare's cottage.--You no
doubt observed a remarkable change in Mr. Vanstone's manner on that day;
and you can now account for it?"

Miss Garth bowed her head, and Mr. Pendril went on.

"You are sufficiently acquainted with Mr. Clare's contempt for all
social prejudices," he continued, "to anticipate his reception of the
confession which his neighbor addressed to him. Five minutes after the
interview had begun, the two old friends were as easy and unrestrained
together as usual. In the course of conversation, Mr. Vanstone mentioned
the pecuniary arrangement which he had made for the benefit of his
daughter and of her future husband--and, in doing so, he naturally
referred to his will here, on the table between us. Mr. Clare,
remembering that his friend had been married in the March of that year,
at once asked when the will had been executed: receiving the reply
that it had been made five years since; and, thereupon, astounded Mr.
Vanstone by telling him bluntly that the document was waste paper in the
eye of the law. Up to that moment he, like many other persons, had
been absolutely ignorant that a man's marriage is, legally as well as
socially, considered to be the most important event in his life; that
it destroys the validity of any will which he may have made as a single
man; and that it renders absolutely necessary the entire re-assertion
of his testamentary intentions in the character of a husband. The
statement of this plain fact appeared to overwhelm Mr. Vanstone.
Declaring that his friend had laid him under an obligation which he
should remember to his dying day, he at once left the cott