Lady Hope started out of her reverie.
"Going away? Where? Who? I cannot understand, Clara!"
"Hepworth—Mr. Closs, I mean. Oh, mamma! he threatens to leave us here all alone by ourselves—the most cruel thing that ever was heard of. I thought how angry you would be, and came at once. You can do anything with him—he loves you so dearly. Let him threaten if he likes, but you will not let him go. You will tell him how foolish, how cruel it is to leave us, while papa is away. Oh! mamma Rachael, you can do anything! Do this! Do this!"
"But why, darling—why do you care so much?"
"Why! why!" Clara threw back her head till the curls waved away from her shoulders, then a burning crimson came over her, the shamed face drooped again, and she answered: "I don't know—I don't know."
Rachael bent her face till it almost touched that hot cheek, and whispered:
"Is it that you love him, my own Clara?"
Again Clara lifted her face. A strange light came upon it. Her lips were parted, her blue eyes opened wide.
"Love him—love him? Oh! mamma Rachael, is this love?"
Rachael smiled, and kissed that earnest face, holding it between both hands.
"I think it is, darling. Nay, I am sure that you love him, and that he loves you."
"Loves me? Then why does he go away? I should think so but for that."
"Because of that, I am afraid, Clara."
"Loves me, and goes away because he loves me!" said the girl, bewildered. "I don't understand it."
"There may be many reasons, Clara."
"I can't think of one. Indeed I can't. Papa never was cruel."
"He may not think it quite honorable to let—make you love him, when your father knows nothing about it."
"But papa would not mind."
"Hepworth does not know that; nor do I. Your father is a very proud man, Clara, and has a right to look high, for his only child."
"What then? Mr. Closs is handsomer, brighter, more—more everything that is grand and royal, than any nobleman I have ever seen. What can papa say against that?"
"But he is a man of no family position—simply Hepworth Closs, nothing more. We can scarcely call him an Englishman."
"What then, mamma? He is a gentleman. Who, in all this neighborhood, can compare with him?"
"No one! no one!" answered Rachael, with enthusiasm. "There is but one man on all the earth so far above the rest; but persons who look upon birth and wealth as everything, may not see him with our eyes, my Clara. Then there is another objection. Hepworth is over thirty."
"Mamma Rachael, you know well enough that I never did like boys," said Clara, with childish petulance.
"And compared with the great landed noblemen of England, he is poor."
"Not so, mamma Rachael. He has made lots and lots of money out in those countries where they dig gold from the earth. He described it all to me, about washing dirt in pans, and crushing rocks in great machines, and picking up pure gold in nuggets—why, he found an awful big one himself. I daresay he has got more real money than papa. I do, indeed."
Lady Hope sighed. Perhaps she thought so too; for Oakhurst was closely entailed, and ready money was sometimes scarce in that sumptuous dwelling.
"And then how much shall I have? Let me ask that of papa."
"But you will inherit something with the Carset title in spite of your grandmother."
"Yes, I know. An enormous old castle with just land enough to keep it in repair. That isn't much to boast of, or make a man like Mr. Closs feel modest when he thinks of me."
"But the title. Is it nothing to be a peeress in your own right?"
"I would rather he were an earl, and I a peeress in his right."
"You are a strange girl, Clara."
"But you love me if I am, mamma Rachael."
"Love you, child! You will never know how much!"
"And if it so happened that he did really like me, you wouldn't go against it?"
"But what would my will be opposed to that of your father?"
"Only this—you can do anything with papa. Don't I remember when I was a little girl?"
Rachael sighed heavily.
"That was a long time ago, Clara, and childish wants are easily satisfied."
Clara threw both arms around her stepmother's neck and kissed her.
"Never mind if he is a little stubborn now and then; you can manage him, yet, mamma. Only, don't let Mr. Closs do that horrid thing. I never could ride alone with the ponies after the last three weeks. You don't know how instructive he is! Why, we have travelled all over the world together, and now he wants to throw me overboard; but you won't let him do that, mamma Rachael. What need is there of any thought about what may come? We are all going on beautifully, now, and, I dare say, papa is enjoying himself shooting grouse. When he comes back and sees how much Mr. Closs is like you, everything will be right. Only, mamma Rachael, tell me one thing. Are you sure that—that he isn't thinking me a child, and likes me only for that? This very night he called me 'my child,' and said he was going. That made me wretchedly angry, so I came in here. Now tell me—"
"Hush! hush! I hear his step on the terrace."
The girl darted off like a swallow. For the whole universe she could not have met Hepworth there in the presence of a third person.
As she left the room, Closs entered it.
"Rachael," he said, standing before his sister, in the square of moonlight cast like a block of silver through the window, "I have been weak enough to love this girl whom we both knew as an infant, when I was old enough to be a worse man than I shall ever be again; and, still more reprehensible, I have told her of it within the last half-hour; a pleasant piece of business, which Lord Hope will be likely to relish. Don't you think so?"
"I do not know—I cannot tell. Hope loves his daughter, and has never yet denied anything to her. He may not like it at first; but—oh! Hepworth, I know almost as little of my husband's feelings or ideas as you can."
"But you will not think that I have done wrong?"
"What, in loving Clara? What man on earth could help it?"
"Well, I do love her, and I think she loves me."
"I know she does."
"Thank you, sister; but she is such a child."
"She is woman enough to be firm and faithful."
"You approve it all, then?"
Hepworth sat down by his sister and threw his arm around her.
"My poor Rachael! how I wish this, or anything else, could make you really happy!"
She did not answer; but he felt her form trembling under his arm.
"But I only see in it new troubles for you and dishonor for myself. There is really but one way for me to act—I must leave this place."
"And Clara? After what you have said, that would, indeed, be dishonorable."
"She is so young; the pain would all go with me. In a few months I shall probably have scarcely a place in her memory."
"You wrong the dearest and finest girl in the whole world when you say that, Hepworth! To desert her now would be profound cruelty."
"Then in what way am I to act?"