"I wish you a pleasant journey. By-the-by, I ought to tell you that you won't have any trouble in being either father or mother, or uncle or aunt to Miss Amedroz."
"She's going to be married to Captain Aylmer."
Then Will Belton started so violently, and assumed on a sudden so manifest a look of anger, that his tale was at once told to Mr. Green. "Who says so?" he asked. "I don't believe it."
"I'm afraid it's true all the same, Will."
"Captain Aylmer was with me to-day, and he told me. He ought to be good authority on such a subject."
"He told you that he was going to marry Clara Amedroz?"
"And what made him come to you, to tell you?"
"There was a question about some money which he had paid to her, and which, under existing circumstances, he thought it as well that he should not pay. Matters of that kind are often necessarily told to lawyers. But I should not have told it to you, Will, if I had not thought that it was good news."
"It is not good news," said Belton moodily.
"At any rate, old fellow, my telling it will do no harm. You must have learned it soon." And he put his hand kindly,--almost tenderly, on the other's arm. But Belton moved himself away angrily. The wound had been so lately inflicted that he could not as yet forgive the hand that had seemed to strike him.
"I'm sorry that it should be so bad with you, Will."
"What do you mean by bad? It is not bad with me. It is very well with me. Keep your pity for those who want it." Then he walked off by himself across the broad street before the club door, leaving his friend without a word of farewell, and made his way up into St. James's Square, choosing, as was evident to Mr. Green, the first street that would take him out of sight.
"He's hit, and hit hard," said the lawyer, looking after him. "Poor fellow! I might have guessed it from what he said. I never knew of his caring for any woman before." Then Mr. Green put on his gloves and went away home.
We will now follow Will Belton into St. James's Square, and we shall follow a very unhappy gentleman. Doubtless he had hitherto known and appreciated the fact that Miss Amedroz had refused his offer, and had often declared, both to himself and to his sister, his conviction that that refusal would never be reversed. But, in spite of that expressed conviction, he had lived on hope. Till she belonged to another man she might yet be his. He might win her at last by perseverance. At any rate he had it in his power to work towards the desired end, and might find solace even in that working. And the misery of his loss would not be so great to him,--as he found himself forced to confess to himself before he had completed his wanderings on this night,--in not having her for his own, as it would be in knowing that she had given herself to another man. He had often told himself that of course she would become the wife of some man, but he had never yet realised to himself what it would be to know that she was the wife of any one specified rival. He had been sad enough on that moonlight night in the avenue at Plaistow,--when he had leaned against the tree, striking his hands together as he thought of his great want; but his unhappiness then had been as nothing to his agony now. Now it was all over,--and he knew the man who had supplanted him!