The months which had elapsed since her inauspicious meeting among the beeches with Paul Ward had had much inquietude and mysterious trouble in them for the girl whose graces they had but ripened and perfected, on whose fair face they had impressed a premature but very beautiful thoughtfulness. To one so young, so innocent, so carefully shielded from evil, living in so pure and calm an atmosphere of home, and yet around whom the inevitable solitude of orphanhood dwelt, the presence of a secret cause of sorrow, doubt, perplexity, was in itself a burden grievous to be borne. Clare could not help, dwelling perpetually on the only mystery which had ever come into her tranquil conventional life, and the more she shrank from the contemplation, the more it pressed itself upon her; Sometimes, for days and weeks together, the remembrance of it would be vague and formless, then it would take shape again and substance, and thrill her with fresh horror, distract her with new perplexity. Sometimes she would address herself with all the force of her intelligence to this mysterious remembrance, she would arrange the circumstances in order and question them, and then she would turn away from the investigation cold and trembling, with all the terrible conviction of the first moment of revelation forcibly restored. The dreadful truth haunted her. When Sir Thomas Boldero asked her ladyship if there was any news in the _Times_ each morning (for the Sycamores was governed by other laws than those which ruled Poynings, and Lady Boldero, who was interested in politics after her preserves and her linen-presses, always read the papers first), Clare had listened with horrid sickening fear for many and many a day. But suspense of this sort cannot last in its first vitality, and it had lessened, but it was not wholly dead even yet. One subject of speculation frequently occupied her. Had he seen the warning she had ventured to send him? No, she would sometimes say to herself, decisively, no, he had not seen it. His safety must have been otherwise secured; if he had seen it, he would know that the terrible truth was known to her, and he would never have dared to recall himself to her memory. For he did so recall himself, and this was the most terrible part of it all for Clare. On the first day of each month she received the current number of the _Piccadilly_, and there was always written on the fly-leaf, "From Paul Ward." No, her attempt had failed; such madness, such audacity, could not otherwise be accounted for. For some time Clare had not looked at the books which reached her with this terribly significant imprint. She had not destroyed them, but she had put them away out of her sight. One day, after her cousin's marriage, and when her thoughts--forcibly distracted for some time by the preparations, the hospitalities, and the rejoicings attendant on that event--had flown back to the subject which had such