{"id":"01KG8AN1KZ9H5EQ0Z86KRX4JFQ","cid":"bafkreihgmzq2eobrkw33k5p6smhecbox7g46muef5qldfenbo3tbmyxh44","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":14917,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.924Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":14856,"text":"II.\r\n\r\nNotwithstanding the maternal visit of Mrs. Tartan, and the\r\nperemptoriness with which it had been closed by her declared departure\r\nnever to return, and her vow to teach all Lucy's relatives and friends,\r\nand Lucy's own brothers, and her suitor, to disown her, and forget her;\r\nyet Pierre fancied that he knew too much in general of the human heart,\r\nand too much in particular of the character of both Glen and Frederic,\r\nto remain entirely untouched by disquietude, concerning what those two\r\nfiery youths might now be plotting against him, as the imagined monster,\r\nby whose infernal tricks Lucy Tartan was supposed to have been seduced\r\nfrom every earthly seemliness. Not happily, but only so much the more\r\ngloomily, did he augur from the fact, that Mrs. Tartan had come to Lucy\r\nunattended; and that Glen and Frederic had let eight-and-forty hours and\r\nmore go by, without giving the slightest hostile or neutral sign. At\r\nfirst he thought, that bridling their impulsive fierceness, they were\r\nresolved to take the slower, but perhaps the surer method, to wrest Lucy\r\nback to them, by instituting some legal process. But this idea was\r\nrepulsed by more than one consideration.\r\n\r\nNot only was Frederic of that sort of temper, peculiar to military men,\r\nwhich would prompt him, in so closely personal and intensely private and\r\nfamily a matter, to scorn the hireling publicity of the law's lingering\r\narm; and impel him, as by the furiousness of fire, to be his own righter\r\nand avenger; for, in him, it was perhaps quite as much the feeling of an\r\noutrageous family affront to himself, through Lucy, as her own presumed\r\nseparate wrong, however black, which stung him to the quick: not only\r\nwere these things so respecting Frederic; but concerning Glen, Pierre\r\nwell knew, that be Glen heartless as he might, to do a deed of love,\r\nGlen was not heartless to do a deed of hate; that though, on that\r\nmemorable night of his arrival in the city, Glen had heartlessly closed\r\nhis door upon him, yet now Glen might heartfully burst Pierre's open, if\r\nby that he at all believed, that permanent success would crown the fray.\r\n\r\nBesides, Pierre knew this;--that so invincible is the natural,\r\nuntamable, latent spirit of a courageous manliness in man, that though\r\nnow socially educated for thousands of years in an arbitrary homage to\r\nthe Law, as the one only appointed redress for every injured person; yet\r\nimmemorially and universally, among all gentlemen of spirit, once to\r\nhave uttered independent personal threats of personal vengeance against\r\nyour foe, and then, after that, to fall back slinking into a court, and\r\nhire with sops a pack of yelping pettifoggers to fight the battle so\r\nvaliantly proclaimed; this, on the surface, is ever deemed very\r\ndecorous, and very prudent--a most wise second thought; but, at bottom,\r\na miserably ignoble thing. Frederic was not the watery man for\r\nthat,--Glen had more grapey blood in him.\r\n\r\nMoreover, it seemed quite clear to Pierre, that only by making out Lucy\r\nabsolutely mad, and striving to prove it by a thousand despicable little\r\nparticulars, could the law succeed in tearing her from the refuge she\r\nhad voluntarily sought; a course equally abhorrent to all the parties\r\npossibly to be concerned on either side.\r\n\r\nWhat then would those two boiling bloods do? Perhaps they would patrol\r\nthe streets; and at the first glimpse of lonely Lucy, kidnap her home.\r\nOr if Pierre were with her, then, smite him down by hook or crook, fair\r\nplay or foul; and then, away with Lucy! Or if Lucy systematically kept\r\nher room, then fall on Pierre in the most public way, fell him, and\r\ncover him from all decent recognition beneath heaps on heaps of hate and\r\ninsult; so that broken on the wheel of such dishonor, Pierre might feel\r\nhimself unstrung, and basely yield the prize.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AKHN6N7MJRN9SKDHFRVGD","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AN1M4GDTZBRKXJCPHQS92","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:56.959Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:34.321Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}