"Yes, the train leaves at seven. But you would like to see more of Lovel, perhaps, having come so far to see him. We can defer our journey for a day or two."
"You are very good. Yes, I should like you to do that."
"And with regard to what you were saying just now," Clarissa said, in a low voice, that was not quite steady, "I trust you will not let the memory of any pain I may have given you influence your future life, or disgust you with a place to which you were so much attached as I know you were to Arden. Pray put me out of your thoughts. I am not worthy to be regretted by you. Our marriage was a sad mistake on your part—a sin upon mine. I know now that it was so."
"A mistake—a sin! O, Clary, Clary, I could have been so happy, if you had only loved me a little—if you had only been true to me.
"I never was deliberately false to you. I was very wicked; yes, I acknowledge that. I did trifle with temptation. I ought to have avoided the remotest chance of any meeting with George Fairfax. I ought to have told you the truth, told you all my weakness; but—but I had not the courage to do that. I went to the Rue du Chevalier Bayard to see my brother."
"Was that honest, Clarissa, to allow me to be introduced to your brother as a stranger?"
"That was Austin's wish, not mine. He would not let me tell you who he was; and I was so glad for you to be kind to him, poor fellow! so glad to be able to see him almost daily; and when the picture was finished, and Austin had no excuse for coming to us any more, I went to see him very often, and sometimes met Mr. Fairfax in his painting-room; but I never went with any deliberate intention of meeting him."
"No," interjected Mr. Granger bitterly; "you only went, knowing that he was likely to be there!"
"And on that unhappy day when you found me there," Clarissa went on, "I had gone to see my brother, having no idea that he had left Paris. I wanted to come away at once; but Mr. Fairfax detained me. I was very angry with him."
"Yes, it appeared so, when he was asking you to run away with him. It is a hard thing for a man to believe in his wife's honour, when things have come to such a pass as that, Clarissa."