'If he had only told me I was wrong!' she sighed.
'He could not tell you so, Clara, for it is not wrong, and he knows it is not. He will thank you by-and-by for not attending to him, now that he does not know what he says. He is fairly distracted with this grief coming upon his home cares.'
'Cares at dear, dear happy home!' cried Clara. 'Never!'
'Ah, Clara! I fear that much comfort went away with dear granny. I think he is overtasking himself at the school; and three children within a year may well make a man anxious and oppressed.'
'And I have vexed and disappointed him more!' exclaimed she. 'No wonder he was angry, and ready to impute anything! But he will believe me, he will forgive me, he will take me home.'
'It is my belief,' said Fitzjocelyn, in his peculiar way, 'that the worst injury you could do to James would be to give way to the spirit that has possessed him.'
'But, Louis,' cried Clara, wildly astonished, 'I must go; I can't have Jem saying these things of me.'
'His saying them does not make them true.'
'He is my brother. He has the only right to me. If I must choose between him and my uncle, he must be mine—mine.'
'You have not to choose between him and your uncle. You have to choose between right and wrong, between his frenzy and his true good.'