"Nor can I warn Clara of the unprincipled character of her guardian, for if she knew him as he is she would surely treat him in such a way as to get his enmity--his dangerous, fatal enmity!--doubly fatal since her person and property are legally at his disposal. Oh, my dove! my dove! that you should be in the power of this vulture! What shall I do, oh, heaven?"
Marah dropped on her knees and finished her soliloquy with prayer. Then, feeling composed and strengthened, she went to Clara's room.
She found the poor girl lying awake and quietly weeping.
"Your guardian has arrived, love," she said, sitting down beside the bed and taking Clara's hand.
"Oh, must I get up and dress to see a stranger?" sighed Clara, wearily.
"No, love; you need not stir until it is time to dress for dinner; it will answer quite well if you meet your guardian at table," said Marah, who had particular reasons for wishing that Clara should first see Colonel Le Noir with other company, to have an opportunity of observing him well and possibly forming an estimate of his character (as a young girl of her fine instincts might well do) before she should be exposed in a tête-a-tête to those deceptive blandishments he knew so well how to bring into play.
"That is a respite. Oh, dear Mrs. Rocke, you don't know how I dread to see any one!"
"My dear Clara, you must combat grief by prayer, which is the only thing that can overcome it," said Marah.
Mrs. Rocke remained with her young charge as long as she possibly could, and then she went down-stairs to oversee the preparation of the dinner.
And it was at the dinner-table that Marah, with the quiet and gentle dignity for which she was distinguished, introduced the younger members of the family to the guest, in these words: "Your ward, Miss Day, Colonel Le Noir."
The colonel bowed deeply and raised the hand of Clara to his lips, murmuring some sweet, soft, silvery and deferentially inaudible words of condolence, sympathy and melancholy pleasure, from which Clara, with a gentle bend of her head, withdrew to take her seat.
"Colonel Le Noir, my son, Doctor Rocke," said Marah, presenting Traverse.
The colonel stared superciliously, bowed with ironical depth, said he was "much honored," and, turning his back on the young man, placed himself at the table.
During the dinner he exerted himself to be agreeable to Miss Day and Mrs. Rocke, but Traverse he affected to treat with supercilious neglect or ironical deference.