“On account of it, I might say.  Our nature is mysterious, and mine as much so as any.  Whatever my regrets, he goes out.  This is not a language I talk to the world.  I do the man no harm; I am not to be named unchristian.  But . . . !”

Sir Willoughby mildly shrugged, and indicated a spreading out of the arms.

“But do, do talk to me as you talk to the world, Willoughby; give me some relief!”

“My own Clara, we are one.  You should know me at my worst, we will say, if you like, as well as at my best.”

“Should I speak too?”

“What could you have to confess?”

She hung silent; the wave of an insane resolution swelled in her bosom and subsided before she said, “Cowardice, incapacity to speak.”

“Women!” said he.

We do not expect so much of women; the heroic virtues as little as the vices.  They have not to unfold the scroll of character.

He resumed, and by his tone she understood that she was now in the inner temple of him:  “I tell you these things; I quite acknowledge they do not elevate me.  They help to constitute my character.  I tell you most humbly that I have in me much—­too much of the fallen archangel’s pride.”

Clara bowed her head over a sustained in-drawn breath.

“It must be pride,” he said, in a reverie superinduced by her thoughtfulness over the revelation, and glorying in the black flames demoniacal wherewith he crowned himself.

“Can you not correct it?” said she.

He replied, profoundly vexed by disappointment:  “I am what I am.  It might be demonstrated to you mathematically that it is corrected by equivalents or substitutions in my character.  If it be a failing—­assuming that.”

“It seems one to me:  so cruelly to punish Mr. Whitford for seeking to improve his fortunes.”

“He reflects on my share in his fortunes.  He has had but to apply to me for his honorarium to be doubled.”

“He wishes for independence.”

“Independence of me!”

“Liberty!”

“At my expense!”

“Oh, Willoughby!”

“Ay, but this is the world, and I know it, my love; and beautiful as your incredulity may be, you will find it more comforting to confide in my knowledge of the selfishness of the world.  My sweetest, you will?—­you do!  For a breath of difference between us is intolerable.  Do you not feel how it breaks our magic ring?  One small fissure, and we have the world with its muddy deluge!—­But my subject was old Vernon.  Yes, I pay for Crossjay, if Vernon consents to stay.  I waive my own scheme for the lad, though I think it the better one.  Now, then, to induce Vernon to stay.  He has his ideas about staying under a mistress of the household; and therefore, not to contest it—­he is a man of no argument; a sort of lunatic determination takes the place of it with old Vernon!—­let him settle close by me, in one of my cottages; very well, and to settle him we must marry him.”