What was I to do? To go, of course. She _might_ have something to reveal which would cast light on her mysterious conduct. I cannot say I expected a disclosure capable of removing Charley’s misery, but I did vaguely hope to learn something that might alleviate it. Anyhow, I would meet her, for I dared not refuse to hear her. To her request of concealing it from Charley, I would grant nothing beyond giving it quarter until I should see whither the affair tended. I wrote at once--making an appointment for the same evening. But was it from a suggestion of Satan, from an evil impulse of human spite, or by the decree of fate, that I fixed on that part of the Regent’s Park in which I had seen him and the lady I now believed to have been Clara walking together in the dusk? I cannot now tell. The events which followed have destroyed all certainty, but I fear it was a flutter of the wings of revenge, a shove at the spokes of the wheel of time to hasten the coming of its circle. Anxious to keep out of Charley’s way--for the secret would make me wretched in his presence--I went into the City, and, after an early dinner, sauntered out to the Zoological Gardens, to spend the time till the hour of meeting. But there, strange to say, whether from insight or fancy, in every animal face I saw such gleams of a troubled humanity that at last I could bear it no longer, and betook myself to Primrose Hill. It was a bright afternoon, wonderfully clear, with a crisp frosty feel in the air. But the sun went down, and one by one, here and there, above and below, the lights came out and the stars appeared, until at length sky and earth were full of flaming spots, and it was time to seek our rendezvous. I had hardly reached it when the graceful form of Clara glided towards me. She perceived in a moment that I did not mean to shake hands with her. It was not so dark but that I saw her bosom heave and a flush overspread her countenance. ‘You wished to see me, Miss Coningham,’ I said. ‘I am at your service.’ ‘What is wrong, Mr Cumbermede? You never used to speak to me in such a tone.’ ‘There is nothing wrong if you are not more able than I to tell what it is.’ ‘Why did you come if you were going to treat me so?’ ‘Because you requested it.’ ‘Have I offended you, then, by asking you to meet me? I trusted you. I thought _you_ would never misjudge me.’ ‘I should be but too happy to find I had been unjust to you, Miss Coningham. I would gladly go on my knees to you to confess that fault, if I could only be satisfied of its existence. Assure me of it, and I will bless you.’ ‘How strangely you talk! Some one has been maligning me.’ ‘No one. But I have come to the knowledge of what only one besides yourself could have told me.’ ‘You mean--’ ‘Geoffrey Brotherton.’ ‘_He!_ He has been telling you--’ ‘No--thank heaven! I have not yet sunk to the slightest communication with _him_.’