"The decision is taken, sir."
"Then I will be out of the way of the firing. Hit what day you please."
Clara checked herself on an impetuous exclamation. It was done that her father might not be detained.
Her astute self-compression sharpened Willoughby as much as it mortified and terrified him. He understood how he would stand in an instant were Dr. Middleton absent. Her father was the tribunal she dreaded, and affairs must be settled and made irrevocable while he was with them. To sting the blood of the girl, he called her his darling, and half enwound her, shadowing forth a salute.
She strung her body to submit, seeing her father take it as a signal for his immediate retirement.
Willoughby was upon him before he reached the door.
"Hear us out, sir. Do not go. Stay, at my entreaty. I fear we have not come to a perfect reconcilement."
"If that is your opinion," said Clara, "it is good reason for not distressing my father."
"Dr Middleton, I love your daughter. I wooed her and won her; I had your consent to our union, and I was the happiest of mankind. In some way, since her coming to my house, I know not how — she will not tell me, or cannot — I offended. One may be innocent and offend. I have never pretended to impeccability, which is an admission that I may very naturally offend. My appeal to her is for an explanation or for pardon. I obtain neither. Had our positions been reversed, oh, not for any real offence — not for the worst that can be imagined — I think not — I hope not — could I have been tempted to propose the dissolution of our engagement. To love is to love, with me; an engagement a solemn bond. With all my errors I have that merit of utter fidelity — to the world laughable! I confess to a multitude of errors; I have that single merit, and am not the more estimable in your daughter's eyes on account of it, I fear. In plain words, I am, I do not doubt, one of the fools among men; of the description of human dog commonly known as faithful — whose destiny is that of a tribe. A man who cries out when he is hurt is absurd, and I am not asking for sympathy. Call me luckless. But I abhor a breach of faith. A broken pledge is hateful to me. I should regard it myself as a form of suicide. There are principles which civilized men must contend for. Our social fabric is based on them. As my word stands for me, I hold others to theirs. If that is not done, the world is more or less a carnival of counterfeits. In this instance — Ah! Clara, my love! and you have principles: you have inherited, you have been indoctrinated with them: have I, then, in my ignorance, offended past penitence, that you, of all women?… And without being able to name my sin! — Not only for what I lose by it, but in the abstract, judicially — apart from the sentiment of personal interest, grief, pain, and the possibility of my having to endure that which no temptation would induce me to commit: — judicially; — I fear, sir, I am a poor forensic orator…"
"The situation, sir, does not demand a Cicero: proceed," said Dr. Middleton, balked in his approving nods at the right true things delivered.
"Judicially, I am bold to say, though it may appear a presumption in one suffering acutely, I abhor a breach of faith."
Dr. Middleton brought his nod down low upon the phrase he had anticipated. "And I," said he, "personally, and presently, abhor a breach of faith. Judicially? Judicially to examine, judicially to condemn: but does the judicial mind detest? I think, sir, we are not on the bench when we say that we abhor: we have unseated ourselves. Yet our abhorrence of bad conduct is very certain. You would signify, impersonally: which suffices for this exposition of your feelings."
He peered at the gentleman under his brows, and resumed:
"She has had it, Willoughby; she has had it in plain Saxon and in uncompromising Olympian. There is, I conceive, no necessity to revert to it."
"Pardon me, sir, but I am still unforgiven."
"You must babble out the rest between you. I am about as much at home as a turkey with a pair of pigeons."
"Leave us, father," said Clara.
"First join our hands, and let me give you that title, sir."
"Reach the good man your hand, my girl; forthright, from the shoulder, like a brave boxer. Humour a lover. He asks for his own."
"It is more than I can do, father."
"How, it is more than you can do? You are engaged to him, a plighted woman."
"I do not wish to marry."
"The apology is inadequate."
"I am unworthy…"
"Chatter! chatter!"
"I beg him to release me."
"Lunacy!"
"I have no love to give him."
"Have you gone back to your cradle, Clara Middleton?"
"Oh, leave us, dear father!"
"My offence, Clara, my offence! What is it? Will you only name it?"
"Father, will you leave us? We can better speak together…"
"We have spoken, Clara, how often!" Willoughby resumed, "with what result? — that you loved me, that you have ceased to love me: that your heart was mine, that you have withdrawn it, plucked it from me: that you request me to consent to a sacrifice involving my reputation, my life. And what have I done? I am the same, unchangeable. I loved and love you: my heart was yours, and is, and will be yours forever. You are my affianced — that is, my wife. What have I done?"
"It is indeed useless," Clara sighed.
"Not useless, my girl, that you should inform this gentleman, your affianced husband, of the ground of the objection you conceived against him."
"I cannot say."
"Do you know?"
"If I could name it, I could hope to overcome it."
Dr. Middleton addressed Sir Willoughby.
"I verily believe we are directing the girl to dissect a caprice. Such things are seen large by these young people, but as they have neither organs, nor arteries, nor brains, nor membranes, dissection and inspection will be alike profitlessly practised. Your inquiry is natural for a lover, whose passion to enter into relations with the sex is ordinarily in proportion to his ignorance of the stuff composing them. At a particular age they traffic in whims: which are, I presume, the spiritual of hysterics; and are indubitably preferable, so long as they are not pushed too far. Examples are not wanting to prove that a flighty initiative on the part of the male is a handsome corrective. In that case, we should probably have had the roof off the house, and the girl now at your feet. Ha!"
"Despise me, father. I am punished for ever thinking myself the superior of any woman," said Clara.
"Your hand out to him, my dear, since he is for a formal reconciliation; and I can't wonder."
"Father! I have said I do not… I have said I cannot…"
"By the most merciful! what? what? the name for it, words for it!"
"Do not frown on me, father. I wish him happiness. I cannot marry him. I do not love him."
"You will remember that you informed me aforetime that you did love him."
"I was ignorant… I did not know myself. I wish him to be happy."
"You deny him the happiness you wish him!"
"It would not be for his happiness were I to wed him."
"Oh!" burst from Willoughby.
"You hear him. He rejects your prediction, Clara Middleton." She caught her clasped hands up to her throat. "Wretched, wretched, both!"
"And you have not a word against him, miserable girl."
"Miserable! I am."
"It is the cry of an animal!"
"Yes, father."
"You feel like one? Your behaviour is of that shape. You have not a word?"
"Against myself, not against him."
"And I, when you speak so generously, am to yield you? give you up?" cried Willoughby. "Ah! my love, my Clara, impose what you will on me; not that. It is too much for man. It is, I swear it, beyond my strength."