In the evening the mystery was elucidated by a visit from Lord Anophel Achthar; who, falling on his knees before her, entreated her to allow the violence of his passion to plead his pardon for a proceeding which nothing but the imminent peril of seeing her in the arms of a rival could have induced him to adopt. Anthelia replied that, if his object were to obtain her affections, he had taken the most effectual method to frustrate his own views; that if he thought by constraint and cruelty to obtain her hand without her affections, he might be assured that he would never succeed. Her heart, however, she candidly told him, was no longer in her power to dispose of; and she hoped, after this frank avowal, he would see the folly, if not the wickedness, of protracting his persecution. He now, still on his knees, broke out into a rhapsody about love, and hope, and death, and despair, in which he developed the whole treasury of his exuberant and overflowing folly. He then expatiated on his expectations, and pointed out all the advantages of wealth and consequence attached to the title of Marchioness of Agaric, and concluded by saying that she must be aware so important and decisive a measure had not been taken without the most grave and profound deliberation, and that he never could suffer her to make her exit from Alga Castle in any other character than that of Lady Achthar. He then left her to meditate on his heroic resolution. [Illustration: _He flattered himself that Anthelia would at length come to a determination._] The next day he repeated his visit—resumed his supplications—reiterated his determination to persevere—and received from Anthelia the same reply. She endeavoured to reason with him on the injustice and absurdity of his proceedings; but he told her the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub and Mr. Feathernest the poet had taught him that all reasonings pretending to point out absurdity and injustice were manifestly jacobinical, which he, as one of the pillars of the state, was bound not to listen to. He renewed his visits every day for a week, becoming with every new visit less humble and more menacing, and consequently more disagreeable to Anthelia, as the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, by whose instructions he acted, secretly foresaw and designed. The latter now undertook to plead his Lordship’s cause, and set in a clear point of view to Anthelia the inflexibility of his Lordship’s resolutions, which, properly expounded, could not fail to have due weight against the alternatives of protracted solitude and hopeless resistance.