Will you have your tea now, or wait and take it comfortably when I am gone ?" Captain Aylmer breakfasted with her, and took her to the station, and saw her off with all possible courtesy and attention, and then he walked back by himself to his own great house in Perivale.

Not a word more had been said between him and Clara as to their engagement, and he recognised it as a fact that he was no longer bound to her as her future husband.

Indeed, he had no power of not recognising the fact, so decided had been her language, and so imperious her manner.

It had been of no avail that he had said that the engagement should stand.
She had told him that her voice was to be the more potential, and he had felt that it was so.

Well;--might it not be best for him that it should be so?
He had kept his promise to his aunt, and had done all that lay in his power to make Clara Amedroz his wife.