Clare was seated in a shady corner of the library, looking alternately at the German map in Murray's Guide and the diamond ring which she had first received from Trevor Chute on the eventful moonlight night at Carnaby Court. How strange that it should be on her finger again after all! 'And to think,' she muttered, 'that papa should so unkindly and, with bad taste have stung his tender and loving heart by speaking to _him_ of me and that big butterfly soldier, Desmond! No wonder it is that Trevor seemed cold, constrained, and strange. Oh, my love, what must you have thought of me!' And the girl, as she uttered this aloud, pressed the ring to her lips, while her eyes filled with tears. Then she sank into one of her reveries, from which, after a time, she was roused by the entrance of her father. He was attired for a ride in the Row, had his whip in his hand, and was buttoning his faultlessly fitting gloves on his thin white aristocratic hands with the care that he usually exhibited; but Clare could perceive that his face wore an undoubtedly cloudy expression. 'Papa, for whom were those lovely jewels that came here for inspection yesterday?' she asked. 'Not for you, Miss Collingwood.' 'Yet they were sent here.' 'A mistake of the shop-people.' Clare looked up with surprise in her sweet face, for his manner, though studiously polite in tone, was curt and strange. 'Perhaps they were for Ida?' said Clare, gently. 'No.'--'Violet, then?' 'No.'--'For whom, then, papa?' 'The sister of him you rejected yesterday.' 'Evelyn Desmond!' 'Yes, Miss Collingwood; and thereby hangs a tale,' replied Sir Carnaby, giving a final touch to his stock in a mirror opposite. 'Did any silly fancy for this man who has just returned to India--this Captain Chute--influence you in this matter?' Clare coloured painfully, but said 'No.' 'Glad to hear it, Clare, as I thought all that stuff was forgotten long ago,' he continued, with the nearest approach to a frown that was ever seen on his usually impassible visage. 'You asked him to dine at your club, papa,' said Clare, evasively. 'Yes, out of mere politeness, to thank him, as Beverley's friend, for visiting Ida, though I fear the visit may make her grief a greater bore than ever. But why did you decline an alliance that would be so advantageous as that with Desmond?' 'Simply because I cannot love him, and I don't wish to leave you, dearest papa; now that you are getting old.' 'Old!' He was frowning in earnest now. 'Pardon me, papa, I love no man sufficiently to make me leave your roof for his.' 'What stuff and nonsense is this, Clare Collingwood!' 'It is neither, but truth, papa.' 'Though you have the bad taste to inform me that I am getting old, permit me to remind you that in many things you, Clare, are a mere child, though a woman in years.' 'A child, perhaps, compared with such women as Desmond's sister Evelyn,' replied Clare, with some annoyance.