ging.

Determination not to let her go was the best finish to this perpetually
revolving round which went like the same old wheel-planks of a water
mill in his head at a review of the injury he sustained. He had come to
it before, and he came to it again. There was his vengeance. It melted
him, she was so sweet! She shone for him like the sunny breeze on
water. Thinking of her caused a catch of his breath.

The dreadful young woman had a keener edge for the senses of men than
sovereign beauty.

It would be madness to let her go.

She affected him like an outlook on the great Patterne estate after an
absence, when his welcoming flag wept for pride above Patterne Hall!

It would be treason to let her go.

It would be cruelty to her.

He was bound to reflect that she was of tender age, and the foolishness
of the wretch was excusable to extreme youth.

We toss away a flower that we are tired of smelling and do not wish to
carry. But the rose--young woman--is not cast off with impunity. A
fiend in shape of man is always behind us to appropriate her. He that
touches that rejected thing is larcenous. Willoughby had been sensible
of it in the person of Laetitia: and by all the more that Clara's
charms exceeded the faded creature's, he felt it now. Ten thousand
Furies thickened about him at a thought of her lying by the road-side
without his having crushed all bloom and odour out of her which might
tempt even the curiosity of the fiend, man.

On the other hand, supposing her to be there untouched, universally
declined by the sniffling, sagacious dog-fiend, a miserable spinster
for years, he could conceive notions of his remorse. A soft remorse may
be adopted as an agreeable sensation within view of the wasted penitent
whom we have struck a trifle too hard. Seeing her penitent, he
certainly would be willing to surround her with little offices of
compromising kindness. It would depend on her age. Supposing her still
youngish, there might be captivating passages between them, as thus, in
a style not unfamiliar:

"And was it my fault, my poor girl? Am I to blame, that you have passed
a lonely, unloved youth?"

"No, Willoughby! The irreparable error was mine, the blame is mine,
mine only. I live to repent it. I do not seek, for I have not deserved,
your pardon. Had I it, I should need my own self-esteem to presume to
clasp it to a bosom ever unworthy of you."

"I may have been impatient, Clara: we are human!"

"Never