And Clare drove back over the peaceful country, beginning to green over faintly under the first impulse of Spring--between lines of ploughed and grateful fields, and soft furrows of soft green corn. She did not even put her veil down, but with her white face set, and her eyes gazing blankly before her, went on with her own thoughts, saying nothing, seeing nothing. All her faculties had suddenly been concentrated within her--her mind was like a shaded lamp for the moment, throwing intense light upon one spot, and leaving all others in darkness. Edgar held her hand, to which she did not object, and watched her with a pity which swelled his heart almost to bursting. He could take care of her tenderly in little things--lift her out of the carriage, give her the support of his arm, throw off the superabundant wraps that covered her. But this was all; into the inner world, where she was fighting her battle, neither he nor any man could enter--there she had to fight it out alone. CHAPTER XVI. The Old Home. Clare went to her own room, and shut herself up there. She permitted Edgar to go with her to the door, and there dismissed him, almost without a word. What Edgar’s feelings were on entering the house where he had once been master, and with which so many early associations both of pleasure and pain were connected, I need not say; he was excited painfully and strangely by everything he saw. It seemed inconceivable to him that he should be there; and every step in the staircase, every turn in the corridor, reminded him of something that had happened in that brief bit of the past in which his history was concentrated, which had lasted so short a time, yet had been of more effect than many years. The one thing, however, that kept him calm, and restrained his excitement, was the utter absorption of Clare in her own troubles, which were more absorbing than anything that had ever happened to him. She showed no consciousness that it was anything to him to enter this house, to lead her through its familiar passages. She ignored it so completely that Edgar, always impressionable, felt half ashamed of himself for recollecting, and tried to make believe, even to himself, that he ignored it too. He took her to the door of her room, his head throbbing with the sense that he was here again, where he had never thought to be; and then went downstairs, to wait in the room which had once been his own library, for Arthur Arden’s return. Fortunately the old servants were all gone, and if any of the present household recognised Edgar at all, their faces were unfamiliar to him. How strange to look round the room, and note with instinctive readiness all the changes which another man’s taste had made! The old cabinet, in which the papers had been found which proved him no Arden, stood still against the wall, as it had always done. The books looked neglected in their shelves, as though no one ever touched them. It was more of a business room than it once was,