or five weeks before this. She had not been at home when the fearful
news had reached Belton, being at that time with a certain lady who
lived on the farther side of the county, at Perivale a certain Mrs
Winterfield, born a Folliot, a widow, who stood to Miss Amedroz in the
place of an aunt. Mrs Winterfield was, in truth, the sister of a
gentleman who had married Clara's aunt there having been marriages and
intermarriages between the Winterfields and the Folliots and the
Belton-Amedroz families. With this lady in Perivale, which I maintain
to be the dullest little town in England, Miss Amedroz was staying when
the news reached her father, and when it was brought direct from London
to herself. Instantly she had hurried home, taking the journey with all
imaginable speed though her heart was all but broken within her bosom.
She had found her father stricken to the ground, and it was the more
necessary, therefore, that she should exert herself. It would not do
that she also should yield to that longing for death which terrible
calamities often produce for a season.

Clara Amedroz, when she first heard. the news of her brother's fate,
had felt that she was for ever crushed to the ground. She had known too
well what had been the nature of her brother's life, but she had not
expected or feared any such termination to his career as this which had
now come upon him to the terrible affliction of all belonging to him.
She felt at first, as did also her father, that she and he were
annihilated as regards this world, not only by an enduring grief, but
also by a disgrace which would never allow her again to hold up her
head. And for many a long year much of this feeling clung to her clung
to her much more strongly than to her father. But strength was hers to
perceive, even before she had reached her home, that it was her duty to
repress both the feeling of shame and the sorrow, as far as they were
capable of repression. Her brother had been weak, and in his weakness