e hall, leaving Magdalen, for the moment, to Miss
Garth's care. Instead of going away, he sat down sulkily on one of the
hall chairs. 'May I ask the reason of this extraordinary violence?' he
inquired, with an injured look. 'No,' I said. 'You will be good enough
to imagine the reason for yourself, and to leave us immediately, if you
please.' He sat doggedly in the chair, biting his nails and considering.
'What have I done to be treated in this unfeeling manner?' he asked,
after a while. 'I can enter into no discussion with you,' I answered;
'I can only request you to leave us. If you persist in waiting to see
my sister again, I will go to the cottage myself and appeal to your
father.' He got up in a great hurry at those words. 'I have been
infamously used in this business,' he said. 'All the hardships and the
sacrifices have fallen to my share. I'm the only one among you who has
any heart: all the rest are as hard as stones--Magdalen included. In
one breath she says she loves me, and in another she tells me to go to
China. What have I done to be treated with this heartless inconsistency?
I am consistent myself--I only want to stop at home--and (what's the
consequence?) you're all against me!' In that manner he grumbled his way
down the steps, and so I saw the last of him. This was all that passed
between us. If he gives you any other account of it, what he says will
be false. He made no attempt to return. An hour afterward his father
came alone to say good-by. He saw Miss Garth and me, but not Magdalen;
and he told us he would take the necessary measures, with your
assistance, for having his son properly looked after in London, and seen
safely on board the vessel when the time came. It was a short visit, and
a sad leave-taking. Even Mr. Clare was sorry, though he tried hard to
hide it.

"We had barely two hours, after Mr. Clare had left us, before it would
be time to go. I went back to Magdalen, and found her quieter and
better, though terribly pale and exhausted, and oppressed, as I fancied,
by thoughts which she could not prevail on herself to communicate.
She would tell me nothing then--she has told me nothing since--of what
passed between herself and Francis Clare. When I spoke of him angrily
(feeling as I did that he had distressed and tortured her, when she
ought to have had all the encouragement and comfort from him that man
could give), she refused to hear me: she made the kindest allowances
and the sweetest exc