"How will she harm the family?"
"I swore to my uncle that I would not make her Countess of Scroope."
"And have you not sworn to her again and again that she should be your wife? Do you think that she would have done for you what she has done, had you not so sworn? Lord Scroope, I cannot think that you really mean it." She put both her hands softly upon his arm and looked up to him imploring his mercy.
He got up from his seat and roamed along the cliff, and she followed him, still imploring. Her tones were soft, and her words were the words of a suppliant. Would he not relent and save her child from wretchedness, from ruin and from death. "I will keep her with me till I die," he said.
"But not as your wife?"
"She shall have all attention from me,—everything that a woman's heart can desire. You two shall be never separated."
"But not as your wife?"
"I will live where she and you may please. She shall want nothing that my wife would possess."
"But not as your wife?"
"Not as Countess of Scroope."