hung upon the eyelashes. “Arden, that gave us our name—that was the very beginning of the race—why should you wish to give it to me?”
“Is it given to you?” said Edgar, with a certain sense of bewilderment creeping over him. “I am afraid I have been like you—I have not understood, nor thought on the subject indeed for that matter. There was something about breaking the entail between him and me; but I did not understand anything about it. I never knew—Clare, I can’t make it out,” he said, suddenly sitting down and gazing at her. “Why did he hate me?”
Then they looked at each other without a word. Clare’s great blue eyes, dilated with grief and wonder, and two big tears which filled them to overflowing, were fixed upon her brother’s face. But she had no elucidation to give. She only put out her hands to him, and took his, and held it close, with that instinctive impulse to tender touch and contact which is more than words. She followed her brother with her eyes while he faced this new wonder. “Well,” he was saying to himself, “of course you must have known he meant something by breaking the entail. Of course it was not for your sake he did it. What could it be for? You never asked—never thought. Of course it could only be to take it from you. And why not give it to Clare? If not to you, of course it must go to Clare; and but for that she could not have had it. It is very well that it should be so. It is best; is it not best?” Thus he reasoned according to his nature, while Clare sat watching him with wistful dilated eyes. While he calmed himself down she was rousing herself. Her agitation rose to the intolerable pitch, while his was slowly coming down to moderation and composure. The sudden cloud floated away from him, and the light came back to his eyes. “I begin to see it,” he said slowly. “Don’t be vexed, Clare, that I did not see it all at once. It is not that I grudge you anything; he might have given you all, and I don’t think I should have grudged it. It is the mistrust—the preference. It is so strange. One wonders what it can mean.”
“Yes,” said Clare, impulsively, “I wonder too. But, more than that, Edgar; you did not know—you did it in ignorance; and I will never, never, take advantage of that! I was bewildered at first; but it is your right, and I will never take it from you–”
Then it was he, who had been robbed of his birthright, who had to exert himself to reconcile her to his loss. “Nay, that is nonsense,” he said. “It is done, and it cannot be done over again. The will must not be interfered with: it is my business to see to that. No, Clare; don’t try to make me do wrong. Nothing we can say will change it, nor anything you can do either. What has been given you is yours, and yours it must remain.”
“But I will not accept it,” said Clare; “I will give it all back the moment I come of age. What! rob you and your children, Edgar—all the Ardens that may come after you! That is what I will never do.”
“It is time enough to think of the Ardens who may come after me,” said Edgar, with an attempt at a laugh. But Clare was not to be pacified so easily. He drew closer to her side, and sat down by her, and took her hand, and spoke softly in her ear, arguing it out as if the question had not been a personal one. “It startled me at first,” he said; “it was strange, very strange, that he should think of taking this, as you say, Clare, not only from me, but from all the Ardens to come; but then you were the dearest to him, and that was quite natural. And it must have been my fault that he did not tell me. I never asked any questions about it—never thought of inquiring. He must have taken me for a kind of Esau, careless of what was going to happen. If I had shown a little more interest, no doubt he would have told me. Of course, he must have felt it would have been for your advantage had I known all about it, and been able to stand by you. I am so glad you have told me now. You may be sure he would have done so had I behaved myself properly. So, you see, it was my fault, Clare. I must have been ungracious, boorish, indifferent. It is clear it was my fault.”
“Mr. Fazakerley, sir, is in the library,” said Wilkins, opening the door. There was a certain breath of agitation in the air about the two young people which the servants had scented out; and the eager eyes of Wilkins expressed not only his own curiosity, but that of the household in general. “He was a patting of her and a smoothing of her down,” was the butler’s report downstairs, “and Miss Clare in one of her ways. I daresay they have quarrelled already, for she is her father’s daughter, is Miss Clare.” The brother and sister were quite unconscious of this comment; but though they had not quarrelled, the conflict of feeling had risen so high that Mr. Fazakerley’s arrival was a relief to both. “I must go and see him,” Edgar said, loosing his sister’s hand, and laying his own tenderly upon her bowed head. “Don’t let it trouble you so much. You will see it as I do when you think of it rightly, Clare.”
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