Anthony Trollope: The Belton Estate

19. CHAPTER XI: MISS AMEDROZ HAS ANOTHER CHANCE (continued)

'You might ask her to come here, as Belinda suggested.'

'Belinda was very foolish to suggest anything of the kind without more consideration.'

'I suppose that my future wife would be made welcome here?

'Yes, Frederic, certainly. I do not know who could be more welcome. But is she to be your wife?'

'We are engaged.'

'But does not that letter break any engagement? Is there not enough in that to make such a marriage quite out of the question? What do you think about it yourself, Frederic?'

'I think that she should have another chance.'

What would Clara have thought of all this herself if she could have heard the conversation between Lady Aylmer and her betrothed husband, and have known that her lover was proposing to give her 'another chance?' But it is lucky for us that we seldom know what our best friends say on our behalf, when they discuss us and our faults behind our backs.

'What chance, Frederic, can she have? She knows all about this horrid woman, and yet refuses to give her up! What chance can she have after that?'

'I think that you might have her here and talk to her.' Lady Aylmer, in answer to this, simply shook her head. And I think she was right in supposing that such shaking of her head was a sufficient reply to her son's proposition. What talking could possibly be of service to such a one as this Miss Amedroz? Why should she throw her pearls before swine? 'We must either ask her to come here, or else I must go to her,' said Captain Aylmer.

'I don't see that at all, Frederic.'

'I think it must be so. As she is situated at present she has got no home; and I think it would be very horrid that she should be driven into that woman's house, simply because she has no other shelter for her head.'