to be borne by her equally; and it seemed to her as if she were gazing into a mirror, in which she saw herself seated alone and neglected in the house which she had bestowed upon him, while he himself roamed about the world, finding at every turn some facile love--some Jeanie, she said to herself--and yet was so just that she paused and blushed, knowing she did an innocent creature wrong. This extraordinary revulsion of feeling shook Clare to the very depths of her being. She had been floating so smoothly down the stream that she was not aware how very fast she had been going; and now this sudden and terrible obstacle seized her and maddened her, and enveloped her in a whirlwind of wild thoughts, as a sudden Niagara might seize and rend a pleasure-boat. She had been prepared for some dangers. He might have got “involved,” as people say, with Alice Pimpernel, and been compelled by honour to marry her for her money’s sake. Such a catastrophe, Clare thought, she could have borne. And he might have been a treacherous enemy to her brother; for that she had been afraid, and had prepared herself. But for this she was unprepared. False to her, false to his own interests, wooing ruin instead of prosperity, giving up his reputation and his life, as well as slighting the true love she had waiting for him. Oh, how miserable, how mean, how wretched it was! Was it possible that he could hold life so cheap as to spend it thus? And he not a boy--no longer a boy who might be tempted and led astray. She made an effort to calm the wild misery in her own breast, by forgetting herself, and making believe that pity for him was the only sentiment that moved her. He was a fool, he was mad, she said to herself; and then the something that burned within her, the terrible pain that gnawed and gnawed at her heart, came uppermost. It was the first slight she had ever received--and such a slight! The Princess had found that a beggar might be preferred to her. The proud, upright, spotless Clare had discovered an attempt to deceive her. The thought made her writhe, as any poor living creature might writhe against the spear that pinned it to the earth. Oh, if she could but escape it, forget, throw Arthur Arden out of her thoughts! But that was impossible. She had to bear it, and get the better of it if she could.