'To see you,' cried he, 'in the midst of those who could not be my well-
wishers; to see your cousin close by you, conversing and smiling, and
feel all the horrible eligibilities and proprieties of the match! To
consider it as the certain wish of every being who could hope to
influence you! Even if your own feelings were reluctant or indifferent,
to consider what powerful support would be his! Was it not enough to
make the fool of me which I appeared? How could I look on without agony?
Was not the very sight of the friend who sat behind you; was not the
recollection of what had been, the knowledge of her influence, the
indelible, immovable impression of what persuasion had once done--was it
not all against me?'

'You should have distinguished,' replied Anne. 'You should not have
suspected me now; the case so different, and my age so different. If I
was wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember it was to persuasion
exerted on the side of safety, not of risk. When I yielded, I thought it
was to duty; but no duty could be called in aid here. In marrying a man
indifferent to me, all risk would have been incurred, and all duty
violated.'

'Perhaps I ought to have reasoned thus,' he replied; 'but I could not. I
could not derive benefit from the late knowledge I had acquired of your
character. I could not bring it into play; it was overwhelmed, buried,
lost in those earlier feelings which I had been smarting under year after
year. I could think of you only as one who had yielded, who had given me
up, who had been influenced by anyone rather than by me. I saw you with
the very person who had guided you in that year of misery. I had no
reason to believe her of less authority now. The force of habit was to
be added.'