The wounded gentleman shut himself up in his laboratory, where he could stride to and fro, and stretch out his arms for physical relief, secure from observation of his fantastical shapes, under the idea that he was meditating.  There was perhaps enough to make him fancy it in the heavy fire of shots exchanged between his nerves and the situation; there were notable flashes.  He would not avow that he was in an agony:  it was merely a desire for exercise.

Quintessence of worldliness, Mrs. Mountstuart appeared through his farthest window, swinging her skirts on a turn at the end of the lawn, with Horace De Craye smirking beside her.  And the woman’s vaunted penetration was unable to detect the histrionic Irishism of the fellow.  Or she liked him for his acting and nonsense; nor she only.  The voluble beast was created to snare women.  Willoughby became smitten with an adoration of stedfastness in women.  The incarnation of that divine quality crossed his eyes.  She was clad in beauty.  A horrible nondescript convulsion composed of yawn and groan drove him to his instruments, to avert a renewal of the shock; and while arranging and fixing them for their unwonted task, he compared himself advantageously with men like Vernon and De Craye, and others of the county, his fellows in the hunting-field and on the Magistrate’s bench, who neither understood nor cared for solid work, beneficial practical work, the work of Science.

He was obliged to relinquish it:  his hand shook.

“Experiments will not advance much at this rate,” he said, casting the noxious retardation on his enemies.

It was not to be contested that he must speak with Mrs Mountstuart, however he might shrink from the trial of his facial muscles.  Her not coming to him seemed ominous:  nor was her behaviour at the luncheon-table quite obscure.  She had evidently instigated the gentlemen to cross and counterchatter Lady Busshe and Lady Culmer.  For what purpose?

Clara’s features gave the answer.

They were implacable.  And he could be the same.

In the solitude of his room he cried right out:  “I swear it, I will never yield her to Horace De Craye!  She shall feel some of my torments, and try to get the better of them by knowing she deserves them.”  He had spoken it, and it was an oath upon the record.

Desire to do her intolerable hurt became an ecstasy in his veins, and produced another stretching fit that terminated in a violent shake of the body and limbs; during which he was a spectacle for Mrs. Mountstuart at one of the windows.  He laughed as he went to her, saying:  “No, no work to-day; it won’t be done, positively refuses.”

“I am taking the Professor away,” said she; “he is fidgety about the cold he caught.”

Sir Willoughby stepped out to her.  “I was trying at a bit of work for an hour, not to be idle all day.”

“You work in that den of yours every day?”