"Well, yes; though I don't like stipulations between friends. There is no man living to whom you could willingly give your hand? That is my question. I cannot possibly take a step unless I know. Reply briefly: there is or there is not." Clara sat back with bated breath, mentally taking the leap into the abyss, realizing it, and the cold prudence of abstention, and the delirium of the confession. Was there such a man? It resembled freedom to think there was: to avow it promised freedom. "Oh, Mrs. Mountstuart!" "Well?" "You will help me?" "Upon my word, I shall begin to doubt your desire for it." "Willingly give my hand, madam?" "For shame! And with wits like yours, can't you perceive where hesitation in answering such a question lands you?" "Dearest lady, will you give me your hand? may I whisper?" "You need not whisper; I won't look." Clara's voice trembled on a tense chord. "There is one . . . compared with him I feel my insignificance. If I could aid him." "What necessity have you to tell me more than that there is one?" "Ah, madam, it is different: not as you imagine. You bid me be scrupulously truthful: I am: I wish you to know the different kind of feeling it is from what might be suspected from . . . a confession. To give my hand, is beyond any thought I have ever encouraged. If you had asked me whether there is one whom I admire--yes, I do. I cannot help admiring a beautiful and brave self-denying nature. It is one whom you must pity, and to pity casts you beneath him: for you pity him because it is his nobleness that has been the enemy of his fortunes. He lives for others." Her voice was musically thrilling in that low muted tone of the very heart, impossible to deride or disbelieve. Mrs. Mountstuart set her head nodding on springs. "Is he clever?" "Very." "He talks well?" "Yes." "Handsome?" "He might be thought so." "Witty?" "I think he is." "Gay, cheerful?" "In his manner." "Why, the man would be a mountebank if he adopted any other. And poor?" "He is not wealthy." Mrs. Mountstuart preserved a lengthened silence, but nipped Clara's fingers once or twice to reassure her without approving. "Of course he's poor," she said at last; "directly the reverse of what you could have, it must be. Well, my fair Middleton, I can't say you have been dishonest. I'll help you as far as I'm able. How, it is quite impossible to tell. We're in the mire. The best way seems to me to get this pitiable angel to cut some ridiculous capers and present you another view of him. I don't believe in his innocence. He knew you to be a plighted woman." "He has not once by word or sign hinted a disloyalty." "Then how do you know." "I do not know." "He is not the cause of your wish to break your engagement?" "No." "Then you have succeeded in just telling me nothing. What is?" "Ah! madam!" "You would break your engagement purely because the admirable creature is in existence?"