And if you won't--I must." He pushed Arnold out of the library, and applied meditatively to the knob of his cane.

His gayety disappeared, now that he was alone.

His experience of Lady Lundie's character told him that, in attempting to win her approval to any scheme for hurrying Blanche's marriage, he was undertaking no easy task.

"I suppose," mused Sir Patrick, thinking of his late brother--"I suppose poor Tom had some way of managing her.

How did he do it, I wonder?
If she had been the wife of a bricklayer, she is the sort of woman who would have been kept in perfect order by a vigorous and regular application of her husband's fist.