and begged me to believe that the proposal had not been made in consequence of any interference on his part. Mr Fairlie leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, said we both of us did honour to human nature, and then repeated his suggestion as coolly as if neither Sir Percival nor I had said a word in opposition to it. It ended in my flatly declining to mention the subject to Laura, unless she first approached it of her own accord. I left the room at once after making that declaration. Sir Percival looked seriously embarrassed and distressed, Mr Fairlie stretched out his lazy legs on his velvet footstool, and said, `Dear Marian! how I envy you your robust nervous system! Don't bang the door!'
On going to Laura's room I found that she had asked for me, and that Mrs Vesey had informed her that I was with Mr Fairlie. She inquired at once what I had been wanted for, and I told her all that had passed, without attempting to conceal the vexation and annoyance that I really felt. Her answer surprised and distressed me inexpressibly -- it was the very last reply that I should have expected her to make.
`My uncle is right,' she said. `I have caused trouble and anxiety enough to you, and to all about me. Let me cause no more, Marian -- let Sir Percival decide.'
I remonstrated warmly, but nothing that I could say moved her.
`I am held to my engagement,' she replied; `I have broken with my old life. The evil day will not come the less surely because I put it off. No, Marian! once again my uncle is right. I have caused trouble enough and anxiety enough, and I will cause no more.'
She used to be pliability itself, but she was now inflexibly passive in her resignation -- I might almost say in her despair. Dearly as I love her, I should have been less pained if she had been violently agitated -- it was so shockingly unlike her natural character to see her cold and insensible as I saw her now.
12th. -- Sir Percival put some questions to me at breakfast about Laura, which left me no choice but to tell him what she had said.
While we were talking she herself came down and joined us. She was just as unnaturally comPosed in Sir Percival's presence as she had been in mine. When breakfast was over he had an opportunity of saying a few words to her privately, in a recess of one of the windows. They were not more than two or three minutes together, and on their separating she left the room with Mrs Vesey, while Sir Percival came to me. He said he had entreated her to favour him by maintaining her privilege of fixing the time for the marriage at her own will and pleasure. In reply she had merely expressed her acknowledgments, and had desired him to mention what his wishes were to Miss Halcombe.
I have no patience to write more. In this instance, as in every other, Sir Percival has carried his point with the utmost possible credit to himself, in spite of everything that I can say or do. His wishes are now, what they were, of course, when he first came here; and Laura having resigned herself to the one inevitable sacrifice of the marriage, remains as coldly hopeless and enduring as ever. In parting with the little occupations and relics that reminded her of Hartright, she seems to have parted with all her tenderness and all her impressibility. It is only three o'clock in the afternoon while I write these lines, and Sir Percival has left us already, in the happy hurry of a bridegroom, to prepare for the bride's reception at his house in Hampshire. Unless some extraordinary event happens to prevent it they will be married exactly at the time when he wished to be married -- before the end of the year. My very fingers burn as I write it!
13th. -- A sleepless night, through uneasiness about Laura. Towards the morning I came to a resolution to try what change of scene would do to rouse her. She cannot surely remain in her present torpor of insensibility, if I take her away from Limmeridge and surround her with the pleasant faces of old friends? After some consideration I decided on writing to the Arnolds, in Yorkshire. They are simple, kind-hearted, hospitable people, and she has known them from her childhood. When I had put the letter in the post- bag I told her what I had done. It would have been a relief to me if she had shown the spirit to resist