from the miry hunt, the horse pricked his cars, and Willoughby looked
down from his road along the bills on the race headed by young Crossjay
with a short start over Aspenwell Common to the ford. There was no
mistaking who they were, though they were well-nigh a mile distant
below. He noticed that they did not overtake the boy. They drew rein at
the ford, talking not simply face to face, but face in face.
Willoughby's novel feeling of he knew not what drew them up to him,
enabling him to fancy them bathing in one another's eyes. Then she
sprang through the ford, De Craye following, but not close after--and
why not close? She had flicked him with one of her peremptorily saucy
speeches when she was bold with the gallop. They were not unknown to
Willoughby. They signified intimacy.

Last night he had proposed to De Craye to take Miss Middleton for a
ride the next afternoon. It never came to his mind then that he and his
friend had formerly been rivals. He wished Clara to be amused. Policy
dictated that every thread should be used to attach her to her
residence at the Hall until he could command his temper to talk to her
calmly and overwhelm her, as any man in earnest, with command of temper
and a point of vantage, may be sure to whelm a young woman. Policy,
adulterated by temper, yet policy it was that had sent him on his
errand in the early morning to beat about for a house and garden
suitable to Dr. Middleton within a circuit of five, six, or seven miles
of Patterne Hall. If the Rev. Doctor liked the house and took it (and
Willoughby had seen the place to suit him), the neighbourhood would be
a chain upon Clara: and if the house did not please a gentleman rather
hard to please (except in a venerable wine), an excuse would have been
started for his visiting other houses, and he had that response to his
importunate daughter, that he believed an excellent house was on view.
Dr. Middleton had been prepared by numerous hints to meet Clara's black