"An Egoist?"
"Who is?"
"You have forgotten our conversation on the day of our walk to the cottage?"
"Help me to forget it—that day, and those days, and all those days! I should be glad to think I passed a time beneath the earth, and have risen again. I was the Egoist. I am sure, if I had been buried, I should not have stood up seeing myself more vilely stained, soiled, disfigured—oh! Help me to forget my conduct, Laetitia. He and I were unsuited—and I remember I blamed myself then. You and he are not: and now I can perceive the pride that can be felt in him. The worst that can be said is that he schemes too much."
"Is there any fresh scheme?" said Laetitia.
The rose came over Clara's face.
"You have not heard? It was impossible, but it was kindly intended. Judging by my own feeling at this moment, I can understand his. We love to see our friends established."
Laetitia bowed. "My curiosity is piqued, of course."
"Dear friend, to-morrow we shall be parted. I trust to be thought of by you as a little better in grain than I have appeared, and my reason for trusting it is that I know I have been always honest—a boorish young woman in my stupid mad impatience: but not insincere. It is no lofty ambition to desire to be remembered in that character, but such is your Clara, she discovers. I will tell you. It is his wish . . . his wish that I should promise to give my hand to Mr. Whitford. You see the kindness."
Laetitia's eyes widened and fixed: