This sudden and insulting hostility to himself made the love of him and of Clare seem more than ever hopeless, unless--unless what? in revenge he eloped with her, but that Clare would never consent to; and now, despite all that had passed between them at their last interview, the old dull ache of the heart had come back to him again. From what did the old baronet's indignation spring? 'What were we saying when he came so suddenly upon us?' thought Chute; 'we were speaking of love, but it was mine for Clare. Could he have dreamed for a moment that I meant for Lady--oh, absurd! absurd!' Yet perhaps it was not so much so as Chute deemed it. So long after darkness had sunk over Lubeck, he sat at his window thinking, and smoking a favourite pipe given him by Beverley in India, and many times he filled and emptied it without seeing his way very clear in the future, while the clear northern moon flooded the sky with a light against which the taper church spires of the little city stood up in sharp and dark outlines, and the bells of the cathedral tolled the hours in succession, and the sunshine, or at least the grey dawn, began to steal over the woodlands that surround Lubeck; and with it came the odour of peat, as the fires were lighted--an odour as strong as there is in any Irish village, or a Scottish clachan in the wilds of Lorne or Lochabar; and he strove to court sleep, thinking that it would be better were he sleeping as Jack Beverley did, under the shadowy shelter of the Indian palms and the fragrance of the baubul trees. CHAPTER XV. 'LOVE IS STRONG AS DEATH.' Jerry Vane did not leave Carnaby Court at the time he intended to do; with ulterior views in her kind heart, Clare pressed him to lengthen his visit, and enjoy a few days' more shooting. She found but little pressing requisite to influence Jerry's actions; yet ere long he had cause greatly to deplore that he had not taken his departure earlier, and he was again doomed to experience a bitter shock concerning his rival--if rival, indeed, he had. Daily and hourly intercourse afforded him all the facilities he could wish for now; but it seemed as though Ida would never again receive him or accept him as her lover, yet would permit him to be the slave of her fascinations, and without the slightest symptoms of vanity or coquetry. She knew all the simple and single-hearted fellow's love, and yet, apparently, would not yield him hers. Indeed, she had more than once hinted or said, he scarcely knew which, as he declined to accept the proposition, that she wished his regard for her to die away in silence. If so, why did she permit her sister to urge that she should remain at Carnaby Court, where, in virtue of her widowhood, she yet presided as matron, though some change would assuredly take place on the return of Lady Evelyn to England.