She seemed to think him justified in this.

You don't mind my telling you?
It is better for you to know what is being said about you in town." I understood his motive.

He was trying to drive me into giving him my full confidence.

But I would not be driven.

I simply retorted quietly but in a way to stop all such future attempts: "Miss Clifford is a very good girl and a true friend of the whole Cumberland family; but she is not the most discriminating person in the world, and even if she were, her opinion would not turn me from the course I have laid out for myself.