Anthony Trollope: The Belton Estate

21. CHAPTER XXI: MRS ASKERTON'S GENEROSITY (continued)

But though she was not high-minded, so also was she not ungenerous; and now, as she began to understand that Clara was sacrificing herself because of that promise which had been given when they two had stood together at the window in the cottage drawing-room, she was capable of feeling more for her friend than for herself. She was capable even of telling herself that it was cruel on her part even to wish for any continuance of Clara's acquaintance. 'I have made my bed, and I must lie upon it,' she said to herself; and then she resolved that, instead of going up to the house on the following day, she would write to Clara, and put an end to the intimacy which existed between them. 'The world is hard, and harsh, and unjust,' she said, still speaking to herself. 'But that is not her fault; I will not injure her because I have been injured myself.'

Colonel Askerton was up at the house on the same day, but he did not ask for Miss Amedroz, nor did she see him. Nobody else came to the house then, or on the following morning, or on that afternoon, though Clara did not fail to tell herself that Captain Aylmer might have been there if he had chosen to take the journey and to leave home as soon as he had received the message; and she made the same calculation as to her Cousin Will though in that calculation, as we know, she was wrong. These two days had been very desolate with her, and she had begun to look forward to Mrs Askerton's coming when instead of that there came a messenger with a letter from the cottage.

'You can do as you like, my dear,' Colonel Askerton had said on the previous evening to his wife. He had listened to all she had been saying without taking his eyes from off his newspaper, though she had spoken with much eagerness.

'But that is not enough. You should say more to me than that.'

'Now I think you are unreasonable. For myself, I do not care how this matter goes; nor do I care one straw what any tongues may say. They cannot reach me, excepting so far as they may reach me through you.'