There are instruments that detect and measure with a beautiful accuracy, the presence and force of invisible influences--heat, electricity, air, moisture. If among all these "meters"--electronometers, hygrometers, anemometers--an _odynometer_, to detect the presence and measure the intensity of hidden _pain_, were procurable, and applied to the breast of that pale, smiling young man at that moment, I wonder to what degree in its scale its index would have pointed! Cleve intended to make some slight and playful remark, he knew not what, but his voice failed him. He had been thinking of this possibility--of this _hour_--for many a day, as some men will of the Day of Judgment, and putting it aside as a hateful thought, possibly never to be embodied in _fact_, and here it was come upon him, suddenly, inevitably, in all its terrors. "Well, certainly, uncle,--as you wish it. I must look about me--seriously. I know you wish me to be happy. I'm very grateful; you have always bestowed so much of your thought and care upon me--_too_ good, a great deal." So spoke the young man--white as that sheet of paper on which his uncle had been pencilling two or three of what he called his thoughts--and almost as unconscious of the import of the words he repeated. "I'm glad, my dear Cleve, you are sensible that I have been, I may say, kind; and now let me say that I think Ethel has a great deal in her favour. There are others, however, I am well aware, and there is time to look about, but I should wish something settled _this_ season--in fact, before we break up, about it; in short I have, as I said, made up my mind. I don't act without reasons; I never do, and mine are conclusive; and it was on this topic, my dear Cleve, I wished to see you. And now I think you may as well have some dinner. I'm afraid I've detained you here rather long." And Lord Verney rose, and moved toward a book-case with Hansard in it, to signify that the conference was ended, and that he desired to be alone in his study. CHAPTER XVII. AN OVATION. CLEVE had no dinner; he had supped full of horrors. He got on his coat and hat, and appeared nowhere that evening, but took an immense walk instead, in the hope I dare say of tiring out his agony--perhaps simply because quietude and uninterrupted thought were unendurable. Next day hope began a little to revive. An inventive mind is inexhaustible; and are not the resources of delay always considerable? Who could have been acting upon his uncle's mind in this matter? The spring of Lord Verney's action was seldom quite within himself. All at once he recollected that he had come suddenly upon what seemed an unusually secret conference between his uncle and Mr. Larkin about ten days since; it was in the library. He was sure the conversation had some reference to him. His uncle looked both annoyed and embarrassed when he came into the room; even the practised countenance of Mr. Larkin betrayed some faint signs of confusion.