ed to be before my marriage."

"But, Julia, there was much for which you owed him gratitude."

"We will say nothing about that now, Hermy."

"I do not know why your mouth should be closed on such a subject because
he has gone. I should have thought that you would be glad to acknowledge
his kindness to you. But you were always hard."

"Perhaps I am hard."

"And twice he asked you to come here since your return, but you would
not come."

"I have come now, Hermy, when I have thought that I might be of use."

"He felt it when you would not home before. I know he did." Lady Ongar
could not but think of the way in which he had manifested his feelings
on the occasion of his visit to Bolton Street. "I never could understand
why you were so bitter."

"I think, dear, we had better not discuss that. I also have had much to
bear--I as well as you. What you have borne has come in no wise from
your own fault."

"No, indeed; I did not want him to go. I would have given anything to
keep him at home."

Her sister had not been thinking of the suffering which had come to her
from the loss of her husband, but of her former miseries. This, however,
she did not explain. "No," Lady Ongar continued to say, "you have
nothing for which to blame yourself, whereas I have much--indeed
everything. If we are to remain together, as I hope we may, it will be
better for us both that by-gones should be by-gones."

"Do you mean that I am never to speak of Hugh?"

"No, I by no means intend that; but I would rather that you should not
refer to his feelings toward me. I think he did not quite understand the
sort of life that I led while my husband was alive, and that he judged
me amiss. Therefore I would have by-gones be by-gones."

Three or four days after this, when the question of leaving Clavering
Park was being mooted, the elder sister started a difficulty as to money
matters. An offer had been made to her by Mrs. Clavering to remain at
the great house, but this she had declined, alleging that the place
would be distasteful to her after her husband's death. She, poor soul!
did not allege that it had been made distasteful to her forever by the
solitude which she had endured there during her husband's lifetime! She
would go away somewhere, and live as best she might upon her jointure.
It was not very much, but it would be sufficient. She did not see, she
said, how she could live with her sister, because she did not wish to be
dependent. Ju