ABSTRACT
When returned to her room, Althea began to reflect on what had just passed. She saw that there was a determined plan, of which Lady Dacres was the principal contriver, to terrify her into an immediate marriage with Mohun; or, if that did not succeed, to make her refusal a pretence for dismissing her from a residence in her father’s family, which, though less satisfactory to Sir Audley himself, would be the next most desirable circumstance to Lady Dacres.
