Craft or Diplomacy

But he was openly defied to prevent communication between the
betrothed pair, unless his injunction had Mabel's endorsement; and,
upon alighting from the stage at the village, on his return to
Ridgeley, he had taken from the post-office, along with the
impertinent missive addressed to himself, one for Mabel,
superscribed by the same hand. From the first, he had no intention
of transferring it to the keeping of the proper owner, It was
forwarded in direct disobedience to his commands, and the writer
should be made to understand the futility of opposition to these.
For several hours, his only purpose respecting it was to enclose it,
unopened, in an envelope directed by himself, and send it back to
the audacious author, by the next mail. He was balked in this
project by no fastidious scruples as to his right thus to dispose of
his ward's property. Nature, or what he assumed was natural
affection, concurred with duty in urging him to hinder an alliance
by which Mabel's happiness would be imperilled and her relatives
scandalized. But when, in the solitude of his study, he vouchsafed a
second reading to Frederic's letter, preparatory to the response he
designed should annihilate his hopes and chastise his impudence, a
doubt of the efficacy of his schemes attacked him for the first
time. "Under her own hand and seal," were terms the explicitness of
which commended them to his grave consideration. His next thought
was to oblige Mabel to indite a formal renunciation of her unworthy
suitor. There were several objections to this measure.