"I cannot conceal from you, so clear-sighted as you are--and if I could, I object to concealment of any kind, on principle--that there are also certain worldly advantages, which are not without weight, however the heart be weaned by trials and chastened from transient things. And your guardian has this arrangement so very much at heart. My own dear child, I have felt for you so long that I love you as a daughter. How thankful I ought to be to the Giver of all good things to have you really my own dear child." "Be thankful, madam, when you have got it. This is a good thing which under Providence you must learn to do without." It was coarse of me to hint at my riches. But what could I do with her? "Why, Clara," she asked, in great amazement, "you cannot be so foolish and wilful as to throw away this chance of revenge? If only for your dear mother’s sake, as well as your father’s, it is the path of duty. Let me tell you, both she and yourself are very much more in your guardian’s power than you have any idea. And what would be your poor father’s wish, who has left you so entirely to his brother’s care and discretion? Will you put off for ever the discovery of his murderer?" "My father," I said, proudly, "would scorn me for doing a thing below him and myself. The last of the Vaughans to be plotted away to a grocer’s doll!" It had been a trial of temper; and contempt was too much for hypocrisy. Through the rouge of the world, and the pearl-powder of religion, nature flushed forth on her cheek; for she really loved her son. She knew where to wound me the deepest. "Is it no condescension in us that my beautiful boy should stoop to the maniac-child of a man who was stabbed--stabbed in his midnight bed--to atone, no doubt, for some low act of his own?" I sprang up, and rang the bell. Thomas Kenwood, who made a point of attending me, came at once. I said to him, calmly and slowly: "Allow this person one hour to pack her things. Get a fly from the Walnut Tree Inn, and see her beyond the Lodge." If I had told him to drag her away by the hair, I believe that man would have done it. She shrunk away from me; for the moment her spirit was quelled, and she trembled into a chair. "I assure you, Clara, I did not mean what I said. You provoked me so." "Not one word more. Leave the room and the house." "Miss Vaughan, I will not leave this house until your guardian returns." "Thomas," I said, without looking towards her, "if Mrs. Daldy is not gone in an hour, you quit my service." How Thomas Kenwood managed it, I never asked. He was a resolute man, and all the servants obeyed him. She turned round once, as she crossed the threshold, and gave me a look which I shall never forget. Was such the look that had glared on my father before the blow? She lifted the white arm of which she was proud, and threw back her head, like the Fecial hurling his dart.