had sought a coward's escape from the ills of the world around him. She
must not also be a coward! Bad as life might be to her henceforth, she
must endure it with such fortitude as she could muster. So resolving
she returned to her father, and was able to listen to his railings with
a fortitude that was essentially serviceable both to him and to herself.

'Both of you! Both of you!' the unhappy father had said in his woe.
'The wretched boy has destroyed you as much as himself!' 'No, sir,' she
had answered, with a forbearance in her misery, which, terrible as was
the effort, she forced herself to accomplish for his sake. 'It is not
so. No thought of that need add to your grief. My poor brother has not
hurt me not in the way you mean.' 'He has ruined us all,' said the
father; 'root and branch, man and woman, old and young, house and land.
He has brought the family to an end ah me, to such an end!' After that
the name of him who had taken himself from among them was not mentioned
between the father and daughter, and Clara settled herself to the
duties of her new life, striving to live as though there was no great
sorrow around her as though no cloud-storm had burst over her head.

The family lawyer, who lived at Taunton, had communicated the fact of
Charles's death to Mr Belton, and Belton had acknowledged the letter
with the ordinary expressions of regret. The lawyer had alluded to the
entail, saying that it was improbable that Mr Amedroz would have
another son. To this Belton had replied that for his cousin Clara's
sake he hoped that the squire's life might be long spared. The lawyer
smiled as he read the wish, thinking to himself that luckily no wish on
the part of Will Belton could influence his old client either for good
or evil. What man, let alone what lawyer, will ever believe in the
sincerity of such a wish as that expressed by the heir to a property?
And yet where is the man who will not declare to himself that such,