"But that will make no difference, mamma."
"No difference, my dear! You cannot marry him against his will. You do not mean to say that you would wish to bind him to his engagement, if he himself thought it would be to his disadvantage?"
"Yes; I will bind him to it."
"Clara!"
"I will make him know that it is not for his disadvantage. I will make him understand that a friend and companion who loves him as I love him—as no one else will ever love him now—for I love him because he was so high-fortuned when he came to me, and because he is now so low-fortuned—that such a wife as I will be, cannot be a burden to him. I will cling to him whether he throws me off or no. A word from him might have broken our engagement before, but a thousand words cannot do it now."
Lady Desmond stared at her daughter, for Clara, in her excitement, was walking up and down the room. The countess had certainly not expected all this, and she was beginning to think that the subject for the present might as well be left alone. But Clara had not done as yet.
"Mamma," she said, "I will not do anything without telling you; but I cannot leave Herbert in all his misery to think that I have no sympathy with him. I shall write to him."
"Not before he writes to you, Clara! You would not wish to be indelicate?"
"I know but little about delicacy—what people call delicacy; but I will not be ungenerous or unkind. Mamma, you brought us two together. Was it not so? Did you not do so, fearing that I might—might still care for Herbert's cousin? You did it; and half wishing to obey you, half attracted by all his goodness, I did learn to love Herbert Fitzgerald; and I did learn to forget—no; but I learned to cease to love his cousin. You did this and rejoiced at it; and now what you did must remain done."
"But, dearest Clara, it will not be for his good."