“And so he handed her to his cousin and secretary, Vernon Whitford, who opened his mouth and shut his eyes.”

The urgent question was, how it was to be accomplished.  Willoughby worked at the subject with all his power of concentration:  a power that had often led him to feel and say, that as a barrister, a diplomatist, or a general, he would have won his grades:  and granting him a personal interest in the business, he might have achieved eminence:  he schemed and fenced remarkably well.

He projected a scene, following expressions of anxiety on account of old Vernon and his future settlement:  and then Clara maintaining her doggedness, to which he was now so accustomed that he could not conceive a change in it—­says he:  “If you determine on breaking I give you back your word on one condition.”  Whereupon she starts:  he insists on her promise:  she declines:  affairs resume their former footing; she frets:  she begs for the disclosure:  he flatters her by telling her his desire to keep her in the family:  she is unilluminated, but strongly moved by curiosity:  he philosophizes on marriage “What are we? poor creatures! we must get through life as we can, doing as much good as we can to those we love; and think as you please, I love old Vernon.  Am I not giving you the greatest possible proof of it?” She will not see.  Then flatly out comes the one condition.  That and no other.  “Take Vernon and I release you.”  She refuses.  Now ensues the debate, all the oratory being with him.  “Is it because of his unfortunate first marriage?  You assured me you thought no worse of him,” etc.  She declares the proposal revolting.  He can distinguish nothing that should offend her in a proposal to make his cousin happy if she will not him.  Irony and sarcasm relieve his emotions, but he convinces her he is dealing plainly and intends generosity.  She is confused; she speaks in maiden fashion.  He touches again on Vernon’s early escapade.  She does not enjoy it.  The scene closes with his bidding her reflect on it, and remember the one condition of her release.  Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, now reduced to believe that he burns to be free, is then called in for an interview with Clara.  His aunts Eleanor and Isabel besiege her.  Laetitia in passionate earnest besieges her.  Her father is wrought on to besiege her.  Finally Vernon is attacked by Willoughby and Mrs. Mountstuart:—­and here, Willoughby chose to think, was the main difficulty.  But the girl has money; she is agreeable; Vernon likes her; she is fond of his “Alps”, they have tastes in common, he likes her father, and in the end he besieges her.  Will she yield?  De Craye is absent.  There is no other way of shunning a marriage she is incomprehensibly but frantically averse to.  She is in the toils.  Her father will stay at Patterne Hall as long as his host desires it.  She hesitates, she is overcome; in spite of a certain nausea due to Vernon’s preceding alliance, she yields.