"Oh, my darling Clare!" he cried in the kindest way he had ever used to
her, "if you knew how I feel this!" and now as he wept she wept, and came
insensibly into his arms.

"My darling Clare!" he repeated.

She said nothing, but seemed to shudder, weeping.

"You will do it, Clare? You will be sacrificed? So lovely as you are,
too!... Clare! you cannot be quite blind. If I dared speak to you, and
tell you all.... Look up. Can you still consent?"

"I must not disobey mama," Clare murmured, without looking up from the
nest her cheek had made on his bosom.

"Then kiss me for the last time," said Richard. "I'll never kiss you
after it, Clare."

He bent his head to meet her mouth, and she threw her arms wildly round
him, and kissed him convulsively, and clung to his lips, shutting her
eyes, her face suffused with a burning red.

Then he left her, unaware of the meaning of those passionate kisses.

Argument with Mrs. Doria was like firing paper-pellets against a stone
wall. To her indeed the young married hero spoke almost indecorously,
and that which his delicacy withheld him from speaking to Clare. He
could provoke nothing more responsive from the practical animal than
"Pooh-pooh! Tush, tush! and Fiddlededee!"