“The thing must run its course,” Vernon said, with the philosophical air which is desperation rendered decorous.  “Willoughby deserves it.  A man of full growth ought to know that nothing on earth tempts Providence so much as the binding of a young woman against her will.  Those two are mutually attracted:  they’re both . . .  They meet, and the mischief’s done:  both are bright.  He can persuade with a word.  Another might discourse like an angel and it would be useless.  I said everything I could think of, to no purpose.  And so it is:  there are those attractions!—­just as, with her, Willoughby is the reverse, he repels.  I’m in about the same predicament—­or should be if she were plighted to me.  That is, for the length of five minutes; about the space of time I should require for the formality of handing her back her freedom.  How a sane man can imagine a girl like that . . . !  But if she has changed, she has changed!  You can’t conciliate a withered affection.  This detaining her, and tricking, and not listening, only increases her aversion; she learns the art in turn.  Here she is, detained by fresh plots to keep Dr. Middleton at the Hall.  That’s true, is it not?” He saw that it was.  “No, she’s not to blame!  She has told him her mind; he won’t listen.  The question then is, whether she keeps to her word, or breaks it.  It’s a dispute between a conventional idea of obligation and an injury to her nature.  Which is the more dishonourable thing to do?  Why, you and I see in a moment that her feelings guide her best.  It’s one of the few cases in which nature may be consulted like an oracle.”

“Is she so sure of her nature?” said Miss Dale.

“You may doubt it; I do not.  I am surprised at her coming back.  De Craye is a man of the world, and advised it, I suppose.  He—­well, I never had the persuasive tongue, and my failing doesn’t count for much.”

“But the suddenness of the intimacy!”

“The disaster is rather famous ‘at first sight’.  He came in a fortunate hour . . . for him.  A pigmy’s a giant if he can manage to arrive in season.  Did you not notice that there was danger, at their second or third glance?  You counselled me to hang on here, where the amount of good I do in proportion to what I have to endure is microscopic.”

“It was against your wishes, I know,” said Laetitia, and when the words were out she feared that they were tentative.  Her delicacy shrank from even seeming to sound him in relation to a situation so delicate as Miss Middleton’s.

The same sentiment guarded him from betraying himself, and he said:  “Partly against.  We both foresaw the possible—­because, like most prophets, we knew a little more of circumstances enabling us to see the fatal.  A pigmy would have served, but De Craye is a handsome, intelligent, pleasant fellow.”

“Sir Willoughby’s friend!”

“Well, in these affairs!  A great deal must be charged on the goddess.”