‘You flatter a father’s feelings,’ said the Consul.
‘I express my own,’ replied Mr. Ferrers. ‘I love her—I have long loved her devotedly.’
‘Hem!’ said Major Ponsonby.
‘I feel,’ continued Mr. Ferrers, ‘that there is a great deal to apologise for in my conduct, towards both you and herself: I feel that my conduct may, in some degree, be considered even unpardonable: I will not say that the end justifies the means, Major Ponsonby, but my end was, at least, a great, and, I am sure a virtuous one.’
‘I do not clearly comprehend you, Mr. Ferrers.’
‘It is some consolation to me,’ continued that gentleman, ‘that the daughter has pardoned me; now let me indulge the delightful hope that I may be as successful with the father.’
‘I will, at least, listen with patience, to you, Mr. Ferrers; but I must own your meaning is not very evident to me: let me, at least, go and shake hands with Lord Bohun.’
‘I will answer for Lord Bohun excusing your momentary neglect. Pray, my dear sir, listen to me. I wish to make you acquainted, Major Ponsonby, with the feelings which influenced me when I first landed on this island. This knowledge is necessary for my justification.’
‘But what is there to justify?’ inquired the major.
‘Conceive a man born to a great fortune,’ continued Mr. Ferrers, without noticing the interruption, ‘and to some accidents of life, which many esteem above fortune; a station as eminent as his wealth—conceive this man master of his destiny from his boyhood, and early experienced in that great world with which you are not unacquainted—conceive him with a heart, gifted, perhaps, with too dangerous a sensibility; the dupe and the victim of all whom he encounters—conceive him, in disgust, flying from the world that had deceived him, and divesting himself of those accidents of existence which, however envied by others, appeared to his morbid imagination the essential causes of his misery—conceive this man, unknown and obscure, sighing to be valued for those qualities of which fortune could not deprive him, and to be loved only for his own sake—a miserable man, sir!’