The Interloper by Violet Jacob

SPEID rode home without seeing a step of the way, though he never put / his horse out of a walk; he was like a man inheriting a fortune which / has vanished before he has had time to do more than sign his name to / the document that makes it his. But, in spite of the misery of their / parting, he could not and would not realize that it was final. He was / hot and tingling with the determination to wear down Lady Eliza's / opposition; for he had decided, with Cecilia's concurrence or without / it, to see her himself, and to do what he could to bring home to her / the ruin she was making of two lives.

He could not find any justice in her standpoint; if she had refused to / admit him to her house or her acquaintance, there might have been some / reason in her act, but she had acknowledged him as a neighbour, invited / him to Morphie, and had at times been on the verge of friendliness. She / knew that, in spite of any talk that was afloat, he had been well / received by the people of the county, for the fact that he had not / mixed much with them was due to his own want of inclination for the / company offered him. He was quite man of the world enough to see that / his presence was more than welcome wherever mothers congregated who had / daughters to dispose of, and, on one or two occasions of the sort, he / remembered that Lady Eliza had been present, and knew she must have / seen it too.