devouring exclamations in person as she, less decidedly, retreated. She retreated as young ladies should ever do, two or three steps, and he would not notice that she had become an angry Dian, all arrows: her maidenliness in surrendering pleased him. Grasping one fair hand, he just allowed her to edge on the outer circle of his embrace, crying: 'Not a syllable of what I have gone through! You shall not have to explain it, my Clara. I will study you more diligently, to be guided by you, my darling. If I offend again, my wife will not find it hard to speak what my bride withheld — I do not ask why: perhaps not able to weigh the effect of her reticence: not at that time, when she was younger and less experienced, estimating the sacredness of a plighted engagement. It is past, we are one, my dear sir and father. You may leave us now.'
'I profoundly rejoice to hear that I may,' said Dr. Middleton. Clara writhed her captured hand.
'No, papa, stay. It is an error, an error. You must not leave me. Do not think me utterly, eternally, belonging to any one but you. No one shall say I am his but you.'
'Are you quicksands, Clara Middleton, that nothing can be built on you? Whither is a flighty head and a shifty will carrying the girl?'
'Clara and I, sir,' said Willoughby.
'And so you shall,' said the Doctor, turning about.
'Not yet, papa: ' Clara sprang to him.
'Why, you, you, you, it was you who craved to be alone with Willoughby!' her father shouted; 'and here we are rounded to our starting-point, with the solitary difference that now you do not want to be alone with Willoughby. First I am bidden go; next I am pulled back; and judging by collar and coat-tag, I suspect you to be a young woman to wear an angel's temper threadbare before you determine upon which one of the tides driving him to and fro you intend to launch on yourself, Where is your mind?'
Clara smoothed her forehead.
'I wish to please you, papa.'
'I request you to please the gentleman who is your appointed husband.'
'I am anxious to perform my duty.'
'That should be a satisfactory basis for you, Willoughby; as girls go!'
'Let me, sir, simply entreat to have her hand in mine before you.'
'Why not, Clara?'
'Why an empty ceremony, papa?'
'The implication is, that she is prepared for the important one, friend Willoughby.'
'Her hand, sir; the reassurance of her hand in mine under your eyes: — after all that I have suffered, I claim it, I think I claim it reasonably, to restore me to confidence.'
'Quite reasonably; which is not to say, necessarily; but, I will add, justifiably; and it may be, sagaciously, when dealing with the volatile.'
'And here,' said Willoughby, 'is my hand.'
Clara recoiled.
He stepped on. Her father frowned. She lifted both her hands from the shrinking elbows, darted a look of repulsion at her pursuer, and ran to her father, crying: 'Call it my mood! I am volatile, capricious, flighty, very foolish. But you see that I attach a real meaning to it, and feel it to be binding: I cannot think it an empty ceremony, if it is before you. Yes, only be a little considerate to your moody girl. She will be in a fitter state in a few hours. Spare me this moment; I must collect myself. I thought I was free; I thought he would not press me. If I give my hand hurriedly now, I shall, I know, immediately repent it. There is the picture of me! But, papa, I mean to try to be above that, and if I go and walk by myself, I shall grow calm to perceive where my duty lies…'
'In which direction shall you walk?' said Willoughby.
'Wisdom is not upon a particular road,' said Dr. Middleton.
'I have a dread, sir, of that one which leads to the railway-station.'
'With some justice!' Dr. Middleton sighed over his daughter.
Clara coloured to deep crimson: but she was beyond anger, and was rather gratified by an offence coming from Willoughby.
'I will promise not to leave his grounds, papa.'
'My child, you have threatened to be a breaker of promises.'
'Oh!' she wailed. 'But I will make it a vow to you.'
'Why not make it a vow to me this moment, for this gentleman's contentment, that he shall be your husband within a given period?'
'I will come to you voluntarily. I burn to be alone.'
'I shall lose her,' exclaimed Willoughby, in heartfelt earnest.
'How so?' said Dr. Middleton. 'I have her, sir, if you will favour me by continuing in abeyance. — You will come within an hour voluntarily, Clara; and you will either at once yield your hand to him or you will furnish reasons, and they must be good ones, for withholding it.'
'Yes, papa.'
'You will?'
'I will.'
'Mind, I say reasons.'
'Reasons, papa. If I have none…'
'If you have none that are to my satisfaction, you implicitly and instantly, and cordially obey my command.'
'I will obey.'
'What more would you require?' Dr. Middleton bowed to Sir Willoughby in triumph.
'Will she…'
'Sir! Sir!'
'She is your daughter, sir. I am satisfied.'
'She has perchance wrestled with her engagement, as the aboriginals of a land newly discovered by a crew of adventurous colonists do battle with the garments imposed on them by our considerate civilization; — ultimately to rejoice with excessive dignity in the wearing of a battered cocked-hat and trowsers not extending to the shanks: but she did not break her engagement, sir; and we will anticipate that, moderating a young woman's native wildness, she may, after the manner of my comparison, take a similar pride in her fortune in good season.'
Willoughby had not leisure to sound the depth of Dr. Middleton's compliment. He had seen Clara gliding out of the room during the delivery; and his fear returned on him that, not being won, she was lost.
'She has gone.' Her father noticed her absence. 'She does not waste time in her mission to procure that astonishing product of a shallow soil, her reasons; if such be the object of her search. But no: it signifies that she deems herself to have need of composure — nothing more. No one likes to be turned about; we like to turn ourselves about; and in the question of an act to be committed, we stipulate that it shall be our act — girls and others. After the lapse of an hour, it will appear to her as her act. Happily, Willoughby, we do not dine away from Patterne to-night.'
'No, sir.'
'It may be attributable to a sense of deserving, but I could plead guilty to a weakness for old Port to- day.'
'There shall be an extra bottle, sir.'
'All going favourably with you, as I have no cause to doubt,' said Dr Middleton, with the motion of wafting his host out of the library.
Chapter XLII
Shows The Divining Arts Of A Perceptive Mind
Starting from the Hall a few minutes before Dr. Middleton and Sir Willoughby had entered the drawing-room overnight, Vernon parted company with Colonel De Craye at the park-gates, and betook himself to the cottage of the Dales, where nothing had been heard of his wanderer; and he received the same disappointing reply from Dr.
