"I have not accused you, Willoughby."
"No poet, and with no wish to be a poet. Were I one, my life would supply material, I can assure you, my love. My conscience is not entirely at rest. Perhaps the heaviest matter troubling it is that in which I was least wilfully guilty. You have heard of a Miss Durham?"
"I have heard—yes—of her."
"She may be happy. I trust she is. If she is not, I cannot escape some blame. An instance of the difference between myself and the world, now. The world charges it upon her. I have interceded to exonerate her."
"That was generous, Willoughby."
"Stay. I fear I was the primary offender. But I, Clara, I, under a sense of honour, acting under a sense of honour, would have carried my engagement through."
"What had you done?"
"The story is long, dating from an early day, in the 'downy antiquity of my youth', as Vernon says."
"Mr. Whitford says that?"
"One of old Vernon's odd sayings. It's a story of an early fascination."