e Jack has "fallen under her spell," Mabel becomes a bit frightened. Of course, she sees Jack as an opportunity to stay away from her sister's house, and she fears that her plan won't work the way that it's supposed to. More importantly, though, she has a fear that her plan will work. If her plan does succeed, then she will no longer be completely independent because she will be with Jack. If she loses her independence she loses her strength, and that ultimately will be her real death. Thus, to Mabel's ears, Jack's insistence that "I want you" is a "terrible intonation which frightened her almost more than her horror lest he should not want her" (573). D. H. Lawrence's story, then, offers a subtle and complex psychological portrait of "The Horse-Dealer's Daughter." Mabel Pervin is both a manipulator of others and a victim of social circumstance. She is at once powerful and vulnerable. Perhaps these complexities and paradoxes are what make her seem so real and so human. ...
