turned out not so bad as they might have been, a little was saved from
the wreck, and the appearance of a suitor, in the person of Everard G.
Roxdal, ensured her a future of competence, if not of the luxury she had
been entitled to expect. She had a good deal of affection for Everard,
who was unmistakably a clever man, as well as a good-looking one. The
prospect seemed fair and cloudless. Nothing presaged the terrible storm
that was about to break over these two lives. Nothing had ever for a
moment come to vex their mutual contentment, till this Sunday afternoon.
The October sky, blue and sunny, with an Indian summer sultriness,
seemed an exact image of her life, with its aftermath of a happiness
that had once seemed blighted.

Everard had always been so attentive, so solicitous, that she was as
much surprised as chagrined to find that he had apparently forgotten the
appointment. Hearing her astonished interrogation of Polly in the
passage, Tom shambled from the sitting-room in his loose slippers and
his blue check shirt, with his eternal clay pipe in his mouth, and
informed her that Roxdal had gone out suddenly earlier in the afternoon.

"G-g-one out," stammered poor Clara; all confused. "But he asked me to
come to tea."

"Oh, you're Miss Newell, I suppose," said Tom.

"Yes, I am Miss Newell."

"He has told me a great deal about you, but I wasn't able honestly to
congratulate him on his choice till now."

Clara blushed uneasily under the compliment, and under the ardour of his