words though in truth size would have had him at her feet if she could
would draw away, and recede, and forbid him as it were to go on. But
Clara continued to make her comparisons, and knew well that her cousin
Will would have gone on in spite of any such forbiddings.

On that night, however, when she was alone, she could console herself
with thinking how right she had been. In that front bedroom, the door
of which was opposite to her own, with closed shutters, in the terrible
solemnity of lifeless humanity, was still lying the body of her aunt!
What would she have thought of herself if at such a moment she could
have listened to words of love, and promised herself as a wife while
such an inmate was in the house? She little knew that he, within that
same room, had pledged himself, to her who was now lying there waiting
for her last removal had pledged himself, just seven days since, to
make the offer which, when he was talking to her, she was always half
hoping and half fearing!

He could have meant nothing else when he told her that he had not
intended to suggest that she should live there alone in that great
house at Perivale. She could not hinder herself from thinking of this,
unfit as was the present moment for any such thoughts. How was it
possible that she should not speculate on the subject, let her
resolutions against any such speculation be ever so strong? She had
confessed to herself that she loved the man, and what else could she
wish but that he also should love her? But there came upon her some
faint suspicion some glimpse of what was almost a dream that he might
possibly in this matter be guided rather by duty than by love. It might
be that he would feel himself constrained to offer his hand to her
constrained by the peculiarity of his position towards her. If so
should she discover that such were his motives there would be no doubt