“It is well, sir, that you have thus spoken to me in the presence of others, for in their presence I call upon you to say, by that honor which the son of this gentleman may for a while forget, but cannot wholly forfeit,—I call upon you to say whether, by deed, word, or sign, I, Frances Trevanion, ever gave you cause to believe that I returned the feeling you say you entertained for me, or encouraged you to dare this attempt to place me in your power.”
“No!” cried Vivian, readily, but with a writhing lip, “no; but where I loved so deeply, perilled all my fortune for one fair and free occasion to tell you so alone, I would not think that such love could meet only loathing and disdain. What! has Nature shaped me so unkindly that where I love no love can reply? What! has the accident of birth shut me out from the right to woo and mate with the high-born? For the last, at least that gentleman in justice should tell you, since it has been his care to instil the haughty lesson into me, that my lineage is one that befits lofty hopes and warrants fearless ambition. My hopes, my ambition—they were you! Oh, Miss Trevanion, it is true that to win you I would have braved the world’s laws, defied every foe save him who now rises before me. Yet, believe me, believe me, had I won what I dared to aspire to, you would not have been disgraced by your choice; and the name, for which I thank not my father, should not have been despised by the woman who pardoned my presumption, nor by the man who now tramples on my anguish and curses me in my desolation.”
Not by a word had Roland sought to interrupt his son,—nay, by a feverish excitement which my heart understood in its secret sympathy, he had seemed eagerly to court every syllable that could extenuate the darkness of the offence, or even imply some less sordid motive for the baseness of the means. But as the son now closed with the words of unjust reproach and the accents of fierce despair,—closed a defence that showed, in its false pride and its perverted eloquence, so utter a blindness to every principle of that Honor which had been the father’s idol,—Roland placed his hand before the eyes that he had previously, as if spell-bound, fixed on the hardened offender, and once more drawing Fanny towards him, said,—
“His breath pollutes the air that innocence and honesty should breathe. He says all in this house are at his command,—why do we stay? Let us go.” He turned towards the door, and Fanny with him.
Meanwhile the louder sounds below had been silenced for some moments; but I heard a step in the hall. Vivian started, and placed himself before us.
“No, no; you cannot leave me thus, Miss Trevanion. I resign you,—be it so; I do not even ask for pardon. But to leave this house thus, without carriage, without attendants, without explanation! The blame falls on me,—it shall do so; but at least vouchsafe me the right to repair what I yet can repair of the wrong, to protect all that is left to me,—your name.”
As he spoke he did not perceive (for he was facing us, and with his back to the door) that a new actor had noiselessly entered on the scene, and, pausing by the threshold, heard his last words.
“The name of Miss Trevanion, sir,—and from what?” asked the new comer as he advanced and surveyed Vivian with a look that, but for its quiet, would have seemed disdain.
“Lord Castleton!” exclaimed Fanny, lifting up the face she had buried in her hands.
Vivian recoiled in dismay, and gnashed his teeth.