Anthony Trollope: The Belton Estate

30. CHAPTER XXX: MARY BELTON (continued)

'He says that he has been forbidden.'

'Oh, Mary, what am I to say to you? You know it all, and I wonder that you can continue to question me in this way.'

'Know all what?'

'That I have been engaged to Captain Aylmer.'

'But you are not engaged to him now.'

'No I am not.'

'And there can be no renewal there, I suppose?'

'Oh, no!'

'Not even for my brother would I say a word if I thought'

'No there is nothing of that; but If you cannot understand, I do not think that I can explain it.' It seemed to Clara that her cousin, in her anxiety for her brother, did not conceive that a woman, even if she could suddenly transfer her affections from one man to another, could not bring herself to say that she had done so.

'I must write to him today,' said Mary, 'and I must give him some answer. Shall I tell him that he had better not come here till you are gone?'

'That will perhaps be best,' said Clara.

'Then he will never come at all.'

'I can go can go at once. I will go at once. You shall never have to say that my presence prevented his coming to his own house. I ought not to be here. I know it now. I will go away, and you may tell him that I am gone.'

'No, dear; you will not go.'