FERDINAND (pacing the room in violent agitation). No more, lady! No more!
LADY MILFORD. This gloomy period was succeeded by one still more gloomy. The court swarmed with French and Italian adventurers—the royal sceptre became the plaything of Parisian harlots, and the people writhed and bled beneath their capricious rule. Each had her day. I saw them sink before me, one by one, for I was the most skilful coquette of all! It was then that I seized and wielded the tyrant's sceptre whilst he slumbered voluptuously in my embrace—then, Walter, thy country, for the first time, felt the hand of humanity, and reposed in confidence on my bosom. (A pause, during which she gazes upon him with tenderness.) Oh! 'that the man, by whom, of all others, I least wish to be misunderstood, should compel me to turn braggart and parade my unobtrusive virtues to the glare of admiration! Walter, I have burst open the doors of prisons—I have cancelled death-warrants and shortened many a frightful eternity upon the galleys. Into wounds beyond my power to heal I have at least poured soothing balsam. I have hurled mighty villains to the earth, and oft with the tears of a harlot saved the cause of innocence from impending ruin. Ah! young man, how sweet were then my feelings! How proudly did these actions teach my heart to support the reproaches of my noble blood! And now comes the man who alone can repay me for all that I have suffered—the man, whom perhaps my relenting destiny created as a compensation for former sorrows—the man, whom with ardent affection, I already clasped in my dreams.
FERDINAND (interrupting her). Hold, lady, hold! You exceed the bounds of our conference! You undertook to clear yourself from reproach, and you make me a criminal! Spare me, I beseech you! Spare a heart already overwhelmed by confusion and remorse!
LADY MILFORD (grasping his hand). You must hear me, Walter! hear me now or never. Long enough has the heroine sustained me; now you must feel the whole weight of these tears! Mark me, Walter! Should an unfortunate—impetuously, irresistibly attracted towards you—clasp you to her bosom full of unutterable, inextinguishable love—should this unfortunate—bowed down with the consciousness of shame—disgusted with vicious pleasures—heroically exalted by the inspiration of virtue—throw herself—thus into your arms (embracing him in an eager and supplicating manner); should she do this, and you still pronounce the freezing word "Honor!" Should she pray that through you she might be saved—that through you she might be restored to her hopes of heaven! (Turning away her head, and speaking in a hollow, faltering voice.) Or should she, her prayer refused, listen to the voice of despair, and to escape from your image plunge herself into yet more fearful depths of infamy and vice——
FERDINAND (breaking from her in great emotion). No, by heaven! This is more than I can endure! Lady, I am compelled—Heaven and earth compels me—to make the honest avowal of my sentiments and situation.
LADY MILFORD (hastening from him). Oh! not now! By all that is holy I entreat you—spare me in this dreadful moment when my lacerated heart bleeds from a thousand wounds. Be your decision life or death—I dare not—I will not hear it!
FERDINAND. I entreat you, lady! I insist! What I have to say will mitigate my offence, and warmly plead your forgiveness for the past. I have been deceived in you, lady. I expected—nay, I wished to find you deserving my contempt. I came determined to insult you, and to make myself the object of your hate. Happy would it have been for us both had my purpose succeeded! (He pauses; then proceeds in a gentle and faltering voice.) Lady, I love!—I love a maid of humble birth—Louisa Miller is her name, the daughter of a music-master. (LADY MILFORD turns away pale and greatly agitated.) I know into what an abyss I plunge myself; but, though prudence bids me conceal my passion, honor overpowers its precepts. I am the criminal—I first destroyed the golden calm of Louisa's innocence—I lulled her heart with aspiring hopes, and surrendered it, like a betrayer, a prey to the wildest of passions. You will bid me remember my rank—my birth—my father—schemes of aggrandisement. But in vain—I love! My hopes become more fervent as the breach widens between nature and the mere conventions of society— between my resolution and worldly prejudices! We shall see whether love or interest is victorious. (LADY MILFORD during this has retired to the extreme end of the apartment, and covers her face with both hands. FERDINAND approaches her.) Have you aught to answer, lady?
LADY MILFORD (in a tone of intense suffering). Nothing! Nothing! but that you destroy yourself and me—and, with us yet a third.
FERDINAND. A third?
LADY MILFORD. Never can you marry Louisa; never can you be happy with me. We shall all be the victims of your father's rashness. I can never hope to possess the heart of a husband who has been forced to give me his hand.