Sir Willoughby marked a lapse of ten minutes by his watch.  His excellent aunts had ventured a comment on his appearance that frightened him lest he himself should be the person to betray his astounding discomfiture.  He regarded his conduct as an act of madness, and Laetitia’s as no less that of a madwoman—­happily mad!  Very happily mad indeed!  Her rejection of his ridiculously generous proposal seemed to show an intervening hand in his favour, that sent her distraught at the right moment.  He entirely trusted her to be discreet; but she was a miserable creature, who had lost the one last chance offered her by Providence, and furnished him with a signal instance of the mediocrity of woman’s love.

Time was flying.  In a little while Mrs. Mountstuart would arrive.  He could not fence her without a design in his head; he was destitute of an armoury if he had no scheme:  he racked the brain only to succeed in rousing phantasmal vapours.  Her infernal “Twice!” would cease now to apply to Laetitia; it would be an echo of Lady Busshe.  Nay, were all in the secret, Thrice jilted! might become the universal roar.  And this, he reflected bitterly, of a man whom nothing but duty to his line had arrested from being the most mischievous of his class with women!  Such is our reward for uprightness!

At the expiration of fifteen minutes by his watch, he struck a knuckle on the library door.  Dr. Middleton held it open to him.

“You are disengaged, sir?”

“The sermon is upon the paragraph which is toned to awaken the clerk,” replied the Rev. Doctor.

Clara was weeping.

Sir Willoughby drew near her solicitously.

Dr Middleton’s mane of silvery hair was in a state bearing witness to the vehemence of the sermon, and Willoughby said:  “I hope, sir, you have not made too much of a trifle.”

“I believe, sir, that I have produced an effect, and that was the point in contemplation.”

“Clara! my dear Clara!” Willoughby touched her.

“She sincerely repents her conduct, I may inform you,” said Dr. Middleton.

“My love!” Willoughby whispered.  “We have had a misunderstanding.  I am at a loss to discover where I have been guilty, but I take the blame, all the blame.  I implore you not to weep.  Do me the favour to look at me.  I would not have had you subjected to any interrogation whatever.”

“You are not to blame,” Clara said on a sob.

“Undoubtedly Willoughby is not to blame.  It was not he who was bound on a runaway errand in flagrant breach of duty and decorum, nor he who inflicted a catarrh on a brother of my craft and cloth,” said her father.

“The clerk, sir, has pronounced Amen,” observed Willoughby.

“And no man is happier to hear an ejaculation that he has laboured for with so much sweat of his brow than the parson, I can assure you,” Dr. Middleton mildly groaned.  “I have notions of the trouble of Abraham.  A sermon of that description is an immolation of the parent, however it may go with the child.”