She might declare that she loved some one else and she might marry that other person.

In that event he saw no other alternative but,--as he expressed it to himself,--"to run a mucker." Whether the "mucker" should be run against Mary, or against the fortunate lover, or against himself, he did not at present resolve.
But he did resolve as he reached his own hall-door that he would make one more passionate appeal to Mary herself before she started for Cheltenham, and that he would not make it out on a public path, or in the Masters' family parlour before all the Masters' family;--but that he would have her secluded, by herself, so that he might speak out all that was in him, to the best of his ability..