nto the market.

"No sooner had we settled in here than, to my horror, Clement Henshaw
began to renew his persecution. He had evidently heard that I had
inherited a good share of my father's fortune, and was worth making
another effort for. He recommenced to write to me, he came down secretly
and waylaid me, and when everything else failed he resorted to threats,
not veiled as before, but open and unmistakable. He vowed that if I
persisted in refusing to marry him he would take good care that I should
never marry any one else. He held, he said, my reputation in his hand; he
hoped he should never have to use his power, but I ought to consider the
state of his feelings towards me and not goad him to desperate measures.
In short he took all the joy out of my life, for I had come from mere
dislike simply to loathe the man who could show himself such a dastardly
cad. And the worst of it was that I saw no way out of it. Dick is a good
fellow and very fond of me, but, although you might not think it, he is
almost absurdly proud of the family name and its unsmirched record. And
if I had confided in him, and he had horsewhipped Henshaw, what good
could that have done? It would simply have infuriated the man, who would
have at once made public my escapade, and few people would have given me
the credit of its being innocent. Dick had just sunk a large part of his
fortune in this place, he had taken over the hounds and was certain of
becoming popular. All that would be nullified and upset if this man,
Henshaw, chose to let loose his tongue. For how could I even pretend to
deny his story? At the very least the truth would mean a hateful
reflection on my dead father, and the whole thing would have led to an
intolerable scandal. Yet it seemed as though this could be avoided in no
other way but by marrying my persecutor, a man whom I had reason to hate
and who had shown himself to be such an unchivalrous bully. About this
time--that is shortly before the Hunt Ball--rumours had got about the
neighbourhood that I was going to marry Lord Painswick. He was certainly
paying me a good deal of attention, and I fancy Dick would have liked
the match, but I could not bring myself to care for Painswick, and indeed
his courtship only added to my other worries.

"But Clement Henshaw heard the rumour and it had naturally the effect of
rousing his wretched pursuit of me to greater activity. He vowed with
brutal vehemence that I should not marry Pains