Many people suspected this, after Lady Augusta, when Clare was gone, and when it came out that Mr. Arden was not with her, but passing most of his time in London, knocking about from club to club, through all the dreary winter. He made an effort to spend his time as virtuously as possible that first year; but the second year he was more restless and less virtuous, having fallen into despair. Then everybody talked of the breach between them, and a great deal crept out that they had thought buried in silence. Even the real facts of the case were guessed at, though never fully established, and the empty house became the subject of many a tale. People remarked that there were many strange stories about the Ardens; that they had behaved very strangely to the last proprietor before Arthur; that nobody had ever heard the rights of that story, and that Edgar had been badly used. Whilst all this went on, Clare lived gloomy and retired by herself, in a little village on the Neapolitan coast. She saw nobody, avoiding the wandering English, and everybody who could have known her in better times; and I don’t know how long her reason could have stood the wear and tear, but for the illness and death of the poor little heir, whose hapless position had given the worst pang to her shame and horror. Little Arthur died, his mother scarcely believing it, refusing to think such a thing possible. Her husband had heard incidentally of the child’s illness, and had hurried to the neighbourhood, scarcely hoping to be admitted. But Clare neither welcomed him nor refused him admission, but permitted his presence, and ignored it. When the child was gone, however, it was Arthur’s vehement grief which first roused her out of her stupor. “It is you who have done it!” she cried, turning upon him with eyes full of tearless passion. But she did not send him out of her house. She felt ill, worn out in body and mind, and left everything in his hands. And by-and-by, when she came to herself, Clare allowed herself to be taken home, and fled from her duties no longer. This was the end of their story. They were more united in the later portion of their lives than in the beginning, but they have no heir to come after them. The history of the Ardens will end with them, for the heir-at-law is distant in blood, and has a different name.