your coming here in this manner

"At Marlborough!" cried Elinor, more and more at a loss to understand what he would be at. "Yes,- I left London this morning at eight o'clock, and the only ten minutes I have spent out of my chaise since that time procured me a nunchion at Marlborough." The steadiness of his manner, and the intelligence of his eye as he spoke, convincing Elinor, that whatever other unpardonable folly might bring him to Cleveland, he was not brought there by intoxication, she said, after a moment's recollection,"Mr. Willoughby, you ought to feel, and I certainly do that after what has passed, your coming here in this manner, and forcing yourself upon my notice, requires a very particular excuse. What is it than you mean by it?" "I mean," said he, with serious energy, "if I can, to make you hate me one degree less than you do now. I mean to offer some kind of explanation, some kind of apology, for the past; to open my whole heart to you, and by convincing you, that though I have been always a blockhead, I have not been always a rascal, to obtain something like "Is this the real reason of your coming?" "Upon my soul it is," was his answer, with a warmth which brought all the former Willoughby to her remembrance, and, in spite of herself, made her think him sincere. "If that is all, you may be satisfied already; for Marianne does, she has long forgiven you." "Has she?" he cried, in the same eager tone. "Then she has forgiven me before she ought to have done it. But she shall forgive me again, and on more reasonable grounds. Now will you listen to me?" Elinor bowed her assent. "I do not know," said he, after a pause of expectation on her side, and thoughtfulness on his own, "how you may have accounted for my behaviour to your sister, or what diabolical motive you may have imputed to me. Perhaps you will hardly think the better of me,- it is worth the trial, however,- and you shall hear every thing. When I first became intimate in your family, I had no other intention, no other view in the acquaintance, than to pass my time pleasantly while I was obliged to remain in Devonshire, more pleasantly than I had ever done before. Your sister's lovely person, and interesting manners, could not but please me; and her behaviour to me almost from the first was of a kind- it is astonishing, when I reflect on what it was, and what she was, that my heart should have been so insensible! But at first, I must confess, my vanity only was elevated by it.