Dr Middleton stood frowning over Ms notes on the table, in Vernon’s handwriting.  He flung up the hair from his forehead and dropped into a seat to inspect them closely.  He was now immoveable.  Clara was obliged to leave him there.  She was led to think that Willoughby had drawn them to the library with the design to be rid of her protector, and she began to fear him.  She proposed to pay her respects to the ladies Eleanor and Isabel.  They were not seen, and a footman reported in the drawing-room that they were out driving.  She grasped young Crossjay’s hand.  Sir Willoughby dispatched him to Mrs. Montague, the housekeeper, for a tea of cakes and jam.

“Off!” he said, and the boy had to run.

Clara saw herself without a shield.

“And the garden!” she cried.  “I love the garden; I must go and see what flowers are up with you.  In spring I care most for wild flowers, and if you will show me daffodils and crocuses and anemones . . .”

“My dearest Clara! my bride!” said he.

“Because they are vulgar flowers?” she asked him, artlessly, to account for his detaining her.

Why would he not wait to deserve her!—­no, not deserve—­to reconcile her with her real position; not reconcile, but to repair the image of him in her mind, before he claimed his apparent right!

He did not wait.  He pressed her to his bosom.

“You are mine, my Clara—­utterly mine; every thought, every feeling.  We are one:  the world may do its worst.  I have been longing for you, looking forward.  You save me from a thousand vexations.  One is perpetually crossed.  That is all outside us.  We two!  With you I am secure!  Soon!  I could not tell you whether the world’s alive or dead.  My dearest!”

She came out of it with the sensations of the frightened child that has had its dip in sea-water, sharpened to think that after all it was not so severe a trial.  Such was her idea; and she said to herself immediately:  What am I that I should complain?  Two minutes earlier she would not have thought it; but humiliated pride falls lower than humbleness.

She did not blame him; she fell in her own esteem; less because she was the betrothed Clara Middleton, which was now palpable as a shot in the breast of a bird, than that she was a captured woman, of whom it is absolutely expected that she must submit, and when she would rather be gazing at flowers.  Clara had shame of her sex.  They cannot take a step without becoming bondwomen:  into what a slavery!  For herself, her trial was over, she thought.  As for herself, she merely complained of a prematureness and crudity best unanalyzed.  In truth, she could hardly be said to complain.  She did but criticize him and wonder that a man was unable to perceive, or was not arrested by perceiving, unwillingness, discordance, dull compliance; the bondwoman’s due instead of the bride’s consent.  Oh, sharp distinction, as between two spheres!