ho,
to clear any vestige of suspicion. She goes."

"That is a case of a person doomed to extinction without offending."

"Not without: for whoever offends my bride, my wife, my sovereign lady,
offends me: very deeply offends me."

"Then the caprices of your wife . . ." Clara stamped her foot
imperceptibly on the lawn-sward, which was irresponsively soft to her
fretfulness. She broke from the inconsequent meaningless mild tone of
irony, and said: "Willoughby, women have their honour to swear by
equally with men:--girls have: they have to swear an oath at the altar;
may I to you now? Take it for uttered when I tell you that nothing
would make me happier than your union with Miss Dale. I have spoken as
much as I can. Tell me you release me."

With the well-known screw-smile of duty upholding weariness worn to
inanition, he rejoined: "Allow me once more to reiterate, that it is
repulsive, inconceivable, that I should ever, under any mortal
conditions, bring myself to the point of taking Miss Dale for my wife.
You reduce me to this perfectly childish protestation--pitiably
childish! But, my love, have I to remind you that you and I are
plighted, and that I am an honourable man?"

"I know it, I feel it--release me!" cried Clara.

Sir Willoughby severely reprehended his short-sightedness for seeing
but the one proximate object in the particular attention he had
bestowed on Miss Dale. He could not disavow that they had been marked,
and with an object, and he was distressed by the unwonted want of
wisdom through which he had been drawn to overshoot his object. His
design to excite a touch of the insane emotion in Clara's bosom was too
successful, and, "I was not thinking of her," he said to himself in his
candour, contrite.

She cried again: "Will you not, Willoughby--release me?"

He begged her to take his arm.

To consent to touch him while petitioning for a detachment, appeared
discordant to Clara, but, if she expected him to accede, it was right
that she should do as much as she could, and she surrendered her hand
at arm's length, disdaining the imprisoned fingers. He pressed them and
said: "Dr Middleton is in the library. I see Vernon is at work with
Crossjay in the West-room--the boy has had sufficient for the day.
Now, is it not like old Vernon to drive his books at a cracked head
before it's half mended?"

He signalled to young Crossjay, who was up and out through the folding
windows in a twinkling.

"And