From the fact that they offended their keen critical taste, moreover, they were targets to the shaft that wounds more fatally than all.

No ridicule knocks the strength out of us so thoroughly as our own.
Whether or not he guessed their condition favourable for his plans, Wilfrid did not give them time to call back their scattered powers.

At the hour of eleven he sent for Arabella to come to him in the library.
The council upstairs permitted Arabella to go, on the understanding that she was prepared for hostilities, and ready to tear the mask from Wilfrid's face.
He commenced, without a shadow of circumlocution, and in a matter-of-fact way, as if all respect for the peculiar genius of the house of Pole had vanished: "I sent for you to talk a word or two about this woman, who, I see, troubles you a little.

I'm sorry she's in the house." "Indeed!" said Arabella.
"I'm sorry she's in the house, not for my sake, but for yours, since the proximity does not seem to...

I needn't explain.