‘I understand well enough. I don’t wonder at any woman falling in love with my Charley.’ ‘Thank you,’ she said, with a sigh which seemed to come from the bottom of her heart. ‘You were always generous. You will do what you can to right me with Charley--won’t you? He is very strange sometimes.’ ‘I will indeed. But, Clara, why didn’t Charley let _me_ know that you and he loved each other?’ ‘Ah! there my shame comes in again! I wanted--for my father’s sake, not for my own--I need not tell you that--I wanted to keep my influence over you a little while--that is, until I could gain my father’s end. If I should succeed in rousing you to enter an action for the recovery of your rights, I thought my father might then be reconciled to my marrying Charley instead--’ ‘Instead of me, Clara. Yes--I see. I begin to understand the whole thing. It’s not so bad as I thought--not by any means.’ ‘Oh, Wilfrid! how good of you! I shall love you next to Charley all my life.’ She caught hold of my hand, and for a moment seemed on the point of raising it to her lips. ‘But I can’t easily get over the disgrace you have done me, Clara. Neither, I confess, can I get over your degrading yourself to a private interview with such a beast as I know--and can’t help suspecting you knew--Brotherton to be.’ She dropped my hand, and hid her face in both her own. ‘I did know what he was; but the thought of Charley made me able to go through with it.’ ‘With the sacrifice of his friend to his enemy?’ ‘It was bad. It was horridly wicked. I hate myself for it. But you know I thought it would do you no harm in the end.’ ‘How much did Charley know of it all?’ I asked. ‘Nothing whatever. How could I trust his innocence? He’s the simplest creature in the world, Wilfrid.’ ‘I know that well enough.’ ‘I could not confess one atom of it to him. He would have blown up the whole scheme at once. It was all I could do to keep him from telling you of our engagement; and that made him miserable.’ ‘Did you tell him I was in love with you? You knew I was, well enough.’ ‘I dared not do that,’ she said, with a sad smile. ‘He would have vanished--would have killed himself to make way for you.’ ‘I see you understand him, Clara.’ ‘That will give me some feeble merit in your eyes--won’t it, Wilfrid?’ ‘Still I don’t see quite why you betrayed me to Brotherton. I dare say I should if I had time to think it over.’ ‘I wanted to put you in such a position with regard to the Brothertons that you could have no scruples in respect of them such as my father feared from what he called the over-refinement of your ideas of honour. The treatment you must receive would, I thought, rouse every feeling against them. But it was not _all_ for my father’s sake, Wilfrid. It was, however mistaken, yet a good deal for the sake of Charley’s friend that I thus disgraced myself. Can you believe me?’ ‘I do. But nothing can wipe out the disgrace to me.’