"I am obliged to go back to Yorkshire, Clary," he said.
She thought he meant they were all going back--that it was an interposition
of Providence, and she was to be taken away from sin and danger. But O, how
hard it seemed to go--never again to look forward to those stolen twilights
in her brother's painting-room!
"I am glad!" she exclaimed. "I shall be very glad to go back to Arden."
"You, my dear!" said her husband; "it is only I who am going. There is some
hitch in our experiments on the home farm, and Forley knows how anxious I
am about making a success this year. So he wants me to run over and see
to things; he won't accept the responsibility of carrying on any longer
without me. I needn't be away above two or three days, or a week at most.
You can get on very well without me."
Clarissa was silent, looking down at a bracelet which she was turning idly
round her arm. Get on without him! Alas, what part had Daniel Granger
played in her life of late beyond that of some supernumerary king in a
stage-play?--a person of importance by rank and title in the play-bill, but
of scarcely any significance to the story. Her guilty heart told her how
little he had ever been to her; how, day by day, he had been growing less
and less. And while he was away, she might go to the Rue du Chevalier
Bayard every day. There would be nothing to prevent her so doing if she
pleased.
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