It was as if she had said:  “Is it really true your happiness depends on me? then take me—­quick—­before my courage fails—­are you happy now, my poor soul?” On the other side there were the passionate pleadings of a lover; the deep, manly voice broken with supplication, the male eyes glistening, the diabolical mixture of fraud and cunning with sincerity.

At the first symptom of yielding the man seized her as the hawk the dove.  He did not wait for a second hint.  He poured out gratitude and protestations.  He thanked her, and blessed her, and in his manly ardor caught her to his bosom.

She shut her eyes, and submitted to the caress as to an executioner.

“Pray let me go to my father,” she whispered.

She came to her father and told him what she had done, and kissed him, and when he kissed her in return, that rare embrace seemed to her her reward.

Meadows went home on wings—­he was in a whirlwind of joy and triumph.

“Aha! what will not a strong will do?” He had no fears, no misgivings.  He saw she did not really like him even, but he would make her love him!  Let him once get her into his house and into his arms, by degrees she should love him; ay, she should adore him!  He held that a young and virtuous woman cannot resist the husband who remains a lover, unless he is a fool as well as a lover.  She could resist a man, but hardly the hearth, the marriage-bed, the sacred domestic ties, and a man whose love should be always present, always ardent, yet his temper always cool, and his determination to be loved unflinching.

With this conviction, Meadows had committed crimes of the deepest dye to possess Susan.  Villain as he was, it may be doubted whether he would have committed these felonies had he doubted for an instant her ultimate happiness.  The unconquerable dog said to himself:  “The day will come that I will tell her how I have risked my soul for her; how I have played the villain for her; and she shall throw her arms round my neck, and bless me for committing all those crimes to make her so happy against her will.”

It remained to clinch the nail.

He came to Grassmere every day; and one night that the old man was telling Susan and him how badly things were going with him, he said, with a cheerful laugh:  “I wonder at you, father-in-law, taking on that way.  Do you think Susan will let you be uncomfortable for want of a thousand pounds or two?”

Now this remark was slyly made while Susan was at the other end of the room, so that she could hear it, but was not supposed to.  He did not look at her for some time, and then her face was scarlet.

The next day he said privately to old Merton:  “The day Susan and I go to church together, you must let me take your engagements and do the best I can with them.”

“Ah, John, you are a friend! but it will take a pretty deal to set me straight again.”

“How much?  Two thousand?”