Desmond loved him--why, he didn't know.

He didn't believe any of the others cared anything at all about him.

Why should they?
The Squire's eyes followed the three distant walkers, Elizabeth, graceful and vigorous, between the other two.

And the conviction gripped him that all the pleasure, the _liveableness_ of life--such as still remained possible--depended for him on that central figure.
He looked back on his existence before her arrival at Mannering, and on what it had been since.

Why, she had transformed it! How could he cage and keep her ?--the clever, gracious creature! For the first time in his life he was desperately, tremulously humble.
He placed no dependence at all on his name or his possessions.
Elizabeth was not to be bought.
But management--power--for the things she believed in--_they_ might tempt her.