Clare took no notice; she sat with her hands clasped, staring blankly before her, murmuring, “My God! my God!” under her breath. Edgar held her hands, which were chill and trembled, but she did not see him. He stood watching her anxiously, fearing that she would faint or fall. But Clare was not the kind of woman who faints in a great emergency. She sat still, with the air of one stupefied; but the stupor was only a kind of external atmosphere surrounding her, within the dim circle of which--a feverish circle--thought sprang up, and began to whirl and twine. She thought of everything all in a moment--her children first, who were dishonoured; and Arden, her home, where she had been born; and her life, which would have to be wrenched up--plucked like a flower from the soil in which she had bloomed all her life. They could not get either sound or movement from her, as she sat there motionless. They thought she was dulled in mind by the shock, or in body, and that it was a merciful circumstance to deaden the pain, and enable them to get her home. While she sat thus, her husband raised himself in terror, and consulted Edgar with his eyes. “Take her home--take her home,” he whispered behind Clare’s back--“take her home as long as she’s quiet; and till she’s got over the shock, I’ll keep myself out of the way.” Clare heard him, even through the mist that surrounded her, but she could not make any reply. She seemed to have forgotten all about him--to have lost him in those mists. When Edgar put his hand on her shoulder, and called her gently, she stirred at last, and looked up at him. “What is it?--what do you want with me?” she asked. “I want you to come home,” he said softly. “Come home with me; I will take care of you; it is not a long drive.” Poor Edgar! he was driven almost out of his wits, and did not know what to say. She shuddered with a convulsive trembling in all her limbs. “Home!--yes, I must go and get my children,” she said. “Yes, you are quite right. I want some one to take care of me. I must go and get my children; they are so young--so very young! If I take them at once, they may never know----” “Clare,” cried her husband, moaning, “you won’t do anything rash? You won’t expose our misery to all the world?” She cast a quick glance at him--a glance full of dislike and horror. “Take me away,” she said to Edgar--“take me away! I must go and fetch the children before it is dark.” This with a pause and a strange little laugh. “I speak as if they had been out at some baby-party,” she said. “Give me your arm. I don’t see quite clear.”