her
ashore as a stray girl, to be returned to her relatives. But this would
only make her furious with him; and he must not alienate her from
himself, at any rate. He might plead with her in the name of duty, for
the sake of her friends, for the good name of the family. She had
thought all these things over before she ran away. What if he should
address her as a lover, throw himself at her feet, implore her to pity
him and give up her rash scheme, and, if things came to the very worst,
offer to follow her wherever she went, if she would accept him in the
only relation that would render it possible. Fifteen years old,--he
nearly ten years older,--but such things had happened before, and this
was no time to stand on trifles.

He worked out the hypothesis of the matrimonial offer as he would have
reasoned out the probabilities in a law case he was undertaking.

1. He would rather risk that than lose all hold upon her. The girl was
handsome enough for his ambitious future, wherever it might carry him.
She came of an honorable family, and had the great advantage of being
free from a tribe of disagreeable relatives, which is such a drawback on
many otherwise eligible parties. To these considerations were to be
joined other circumstances which we need not here mention, of a nature to
add greatly to their force, and which would go far of themselves to
determine his action.

2. How was it likely she would look on such an extraordinary
proposition? At first, no doubt, as Lady Anne looked upon the advances
of Richard. She would be startled, perhaps shocked. What then? She
could not help feeling flattered at such an offer from him,--him, William
Murray Bradshaw, the rising young man of his county, at her feet, his
eyes melting with the love he would throw into them, his tones subdued to
their most sympathetic quality, and all those phrases on his lips which
every day beguile women older and more discreet than this romantic,
long-imprisoned girl, whose rash and adventurous enterprise was an
assertion of her womanhood and her right to dispose of herself as she
chose. He had not lived to be twenty-five years old without knowing his
power with women. He believed in himself so thoroughly, that his very
confidence was a strong promise of success.

3. In case all his entreaties, arguments, and offers made no impression,
should he make use of that supreme resource, not to be employed save in
extreme need, but which was