“Passion! Well, since grief and terror and despair have made my bosom so stormy, you may call it so! else never should my lifelong, quiet, contented attachment to Ralph be termed a passion, as if it were the feverish caprice of yesterday. But oh, Heaven! all this time you are not answering me. You do not promise that you will not meet him. Father, I cannot die of grief, else had I long since been lying beside your other Marguerite! But I feel that I may go mad, and that soon. Already reason reels with dwelling on this impending duel! with the thought that a few hours hence——! Father, if you would not have your Marguerite’s child go mad, curse the author of her being, and lay desperate hands upon her own life, forgo this duel! do not make her a widowed bride!”
“Wretched girl, it were better that you were dead, for come what may, Margaret, honor must be saved.”
“Then you will kill him! My father will kill my husband!”
“Why do you harp upon this subject forever? Shall I not equally risk my own life?”
“No, no, no! he will never risk hurting a hair of your head. My life and soul upon it, he will fire into the air! I know and feel what he will do, here, deep in my heart. I know and feel what has been done. Father, you met him in your blind rage, you gave him no chance of explanation, but goaded and taunted, and drove him to the point of accepting your challenge. You will meet him, you will murder him! and I, oh, I shall go mad, and curse the father that gave me life, and him death!” she said, starting up and wildly traversing the floor.
“‘Still waters run deep!’ Who would have supposed this quiet maiden had inherited all Marguerite De Lancie’s strength of feeling?” thought Major Helmstedt, as in a deep trouble he watched his daughter’s distracted walk.
Suddenly, as that latent and final resolution, before mentioned, recurred to her mind, she paused, and came up to her father’s side, and said:
“Father, this thing must go no farther!”
“What mean you, Margaret?”
“This duel must not take place.”