of taking the cup from his lip, the one morsel of bread which he coveted
from his mouth, his one ingot of treasure out of his coffer? Fight him!
No, he knew he could not fight Lord Ongar. The world was against such an
arrangement. And in truth Harry Clavering had so much contempt for Lord
Ongar, that he had no wish to fight so poor a creature. The man had had
delirium tremens, and was a worn-out miserable object. So at least Harry
Clavering was only too ready to believe. He did not care much for Lord
Ongar in the matter. His anger was against her; that she should have
deserted him for a miserable creature, who had nothing to back him but
wealth and rank!

There was wretchedness in every view of the matter. He loved her so
well, and yet he could do nothing! He could take no step toward saving
her or assisting himself. The marriage bells would ring within a month
from the present time, and his own father would go to the church and
marry them. Unless Lord Ongar were to die before then by God's hand,
there could be no escape--and of such escape Harry Clavering had no
thought. He felt a weary, dragging soreness at his heart, and told
himself that he must be miserable for-ever--not so miserable but what he
would work, but so wretched that the world could have for him no
satisfaction.

What could he do? What thing could he achieve so that she should know
that he did not let her go from him without more thought than his poor
words had expressed? He was perfectly aware that in their conversation
she had had the best of the argument--that he had talked almost like a
boy, while she had talked quite like a woman. She had treated him de
haut en bas with all that superiority which youth and beauty give to a
young woman over a very young man. What could he do? Before he returned
to the rectory, he had made up his mind what he would do, and on the