Without delay, then, he said, they must appoint a person of trust, who knew the French language well, and to whom the whole history might be confided; to carry over the offer, and the money, and to bring back the Bishop.
'And I have a friend,' he continued, 'now ready for the enterprize. One equally able and willing to claim the Bishop, and to give undoubted security for the six thousand pounds. Can you form any notion who such a man may be?'
He looked at her gaily, yet with a scrutiny that made her blush. One person only could occur to her; but occurred with an alarming sense of impropriety in allowing him such an employment, that instantly damped her high delight. She dropt her eyes; an unrepressed sigh broke from her heart; but secret consciousness hushed all enquiry into the truth of her conjecture.
In silence, too, for a moment, Lord Melbury contemplated her; struck with her sudden sadness, and uncertain to what it might be attributed. Affectionately, then, taking her hand, 'I must come,' he cried, 'to the point, or my messenger will lose his patience. Proposals of marriage the most honourable have been made to me; such, my dear sister, as merit my best interest with you. The person is unexceptionable, high in mind, manners, and family, and has long been attached to you—'
Juliet here, with dignity, interrupted him, 'My lord, I will not ask who this may be; I even beg not to be told. I can listen to no one! Till the Bishop is released and safe, I hold myself merely to be his hostage; and, till my freedom, atrociously as it has been violated, shall be legally restored to me, I cannot but feel hurt,—for I will not say offended where the intention is so kind, and so pure,—that any proposals of any sort, and from any person, should be addressed to me!'
Lord Melbury, prepared for expostulation, was beginning to reply; but she solemnly besought him not to involve her in any new conflicts.
She then asked his permission to introduce him to her uncle, Admiral Powel; whom she desired to join upon the beach.
No, no; he answered; other business, still more urgent, must have precedence. And, holding both her hands, he insisted upon acquainting, her, that it was Mr Harleigh who had been his informant of her history and situation; and that she was the undoubted and legitimate daughter of Lord Granville; all which he had learnt from Sir Jaspar Herrington. 'And Mr Harleigh has begged my leave,' continued his lordship, smiling, 'though I am not, you may think, perhaps, very old for judging of such matters; to make his addresses to you.—Now don't put yourself into that flutter till you hear how he arranged it; for he knows all your scruples, and reveres them,—or, rather, and reveres you, my sweet sister! for your scruples we both think a little chimerical: don't be angry at that; we honour you all the same for having them: and Mr Harleigh seems to adore you only the more. So, I make no doubt does Aurora. And I, too, my dear sister! only I can't see you sacrificed to them. But Mr Harleigh has found a way to reconcile all perplexities. He will save you, he says, in honour as well as in person; for the wretch shall still have the wife whom he married, if he will restore the Bishop!'
'What can you mean?'—
'His six thousand pounds, my dear sister! That sum, in full, he shall have; for that, as Harleigh says, is the wife that he married!'