Anthony Trollope: The Belton Estate

20. CHAPTER XX: WILLIAM BELTON DOES NOT GO OUT HUNTING (continued)

'It hasn't been that that has brought me back, Mary. I'll tell you what. I think I'll go down to Belton after all.'

His sister did not know what to say in answer to this. Her chief anxiety was, of course, on behalf of her brother. That he should be made to forget Clara Amedroz, if that were only possible, was her great desire; and his journey at such a time as this down to Belton was not the way to accomplish such forgetting. And then she felt that Clara might very possibly not wish to see him. Had Will simply been her cousin, such a visit might be very well; but he had attempted to be more than her cousin, and therefore it would probably not be well. Captain Aylmer might not like it; and Mary felt herself bound to consider even Captain Aylmer's likings in such a matter. And yet she could not bear to oppose him in anything. 'It would be a very long journey,' she said.

'What does that signify?'

'And then it might so probably be for nothing.'

'Why should it be for nothing?'

'Because '

'Because what? Why don't you speak out? You need not be afraid of hurting me. Nothing that you can say can make it at all worse than it is.'

'Dear Will, I wish I could make it better.'