 single stroke on it reverberated swellingly within the man,
and most, and infuriately searching, at the spots where he had been wounded,
especially where he feared the world might have guessed the wound. Did she imply
that he had no hand for love-letters? Was it her meaning that women would not
have much taste for his epistolary correspondence? She had spoken in the plural,
with an accent on men. Had she heard of Constantia? Had she formed her own
judgement about the creature? The supernatural sensitiveness of Sir Willoughby
shrieked a peal of affirmatives. He had often meditated on the moral obligation
of his unfolding to Clara the whole truth of his conduct to Constantia; for
whom, as for other suicides, there were excuses. He at least was bound to supply
them. She had behaved badly; but had he not given her some cause? If so,
manliness was bound to confess it.
    Supposing Clara heard the world's version first! Men whose pride is their
backbone suffer convulsions where other men are barely aware of a shock, and Sir
Willoughby was taken with galvanic jumpings of the spirit within him, at the
idea of the world whispering to Clara that he had been jilted.
    »My letters to men, you say, my love?«
    »Your letters of business.«
    »Completely myself in my letters of business?« He stared indeed.
    She relaxed the tension of his figure by remarking: »You are able to express
yourself to men as your meaning dictates. In writing to ... to us it is, I
suppose, more difficult.«
    »True, my love. I will not exactly say difficult. I can acknowledge no
difficulty. Language, I should say, is not fitted to express emotion. Passion
rejects it.«
    »For dumb-show and pantomime?«
    »No: but the writing of it coldly.«
    »Ah, coldly!«
    »My letters disappoint you?«
    »I have not implied that they do.«
    »My feelings, dearest, are too strong for transcription. I feel, pen in
hand, like the mythological Titan at war with Jove, strong enough to hurl
mountains, and finding nothing but pebbles. The simile is a good one. You must
not judge of me by my letters.«
    »I do not; I like them,« said Clara.
    She blushed, eyed him hurriedly, and seeing him complacent, resumed: »I
prefer the pebble to the mountain; but if you read poetry you would not think
human speech incapable of ...«
    »
