Have him out of that mire, we can't hope for more now.' Rosamund postponed her mission to plead.

Her heart was with Nevil; her understanding was easily led to side against him, and for better reasons than Mr.Romfrey could be aware of: so she was assured by her experience of the character of Mademoiselle de Croisnel.

A certain belief in her personal arts of persuasion had stopped her from writing on her homeward journey to inform him that Nevil was not accompanying her, and when she drove over Steynham Common, triumphal arches and the odour of a roasting ox richly browning to celebrate the hero's return afflicted her mind with all the solid arguments of a common-sense country in contravention of a wild lover's vaporous extravagances.

Why had he not come with her?
The disappointed ox put the question in a wavering drop of the cheers of the villagers at the sight of the carriage without their bleeding hero.
Mr.Romfrey, at his hall-doors, merely screwed his eyebrows; for it was the quality of this gentleman to foresee most human events, and his capacity to stifle astonishment when they trifled with his prognostics.
Rosamund had left Nevil fast bound in the meshes of the young French sorceress, no longer leading, but submissively following, expecting blindly, seeing strange new virtues in the lurid indication of what appeared to border on the reverse.

How could she plead for her infatuated darling to one who was common sense in person?
Everard's pointed interrogations reduced her to speak defensively, instead of attacking and claiming his aid for the poor enamoured young man.