Some weeks passed on; Rookleigh became impatient for action, and during these weeks a thoughtful and shadowy expression deepened in the once bright face of Clara, till it became one of such woeful fear, that the heart of the father alternately bled with sorrow for her, and swelled with indignation against Derval.
Every way Clara was a desirable wife, one of whose beauty, at least, any man might well be proud. She had inflamed the senses and fired the vanity of Rookleigh Hampton—not touched his heart, for he had none, in the way of a lover, to touch; thus, in the pursuit of his scheme he could think, speak, and act, with consummate coolness of head and demeanour.
He was well-pleased to find that—thanks to the hints of his mother—the gossips of Finglecombe, to whom all his actions and motives were objects of interest, already coupled his name seriously with that of Clara Hampton.
"Self-contained and well-balanced as she deems herself, this appearance of Derval's wife has knocked her off her perch!" thought Rookleigh, with a chuckle, when one day his eye fell on her white hand, as it rested on the arm of a sofa, and he remarked that the ring, which he knew Derval had given to her, was no longer on her engaged finger. She had removed it—relinquished it—and Rookleigh took this as an infallible sign that she now concluded all was over between the absent one and herself.
"Good!" thought he, "good; I'll make my innings now!"
And with a coolness and confidence far beyond his years, he, with the greatest deliberation, took the earliest opportunity of obtaining Lord Oakhampton's permission to address his daughter.
"I should like to repair, if I possibly can do so, the evil my brother has done her, my lord. I do not understand how it is," said he, "that I have gone on so far with her without the least encouragement; but a love for her has grown rapidly upon me, and this love has become a part of my life—my very existence."
"You are very young to talk in this fashion," said Lord Oakhampton, uneasily.
"If she would but care for me!" sighed Rookleigh, assuming humility and timidity.
"It is not my Clara's way to care for any man as he may probably care for her."