"That you should marry me!" exclaimed Ellen. "Yes—that is the prayer which I now offer to you! Oh! if you will but restore me to the path of honour, I will be your slave. If my presence be an annoyance to you, I will never see you more from the moment when we quit the altar: but if you will admit me to your confidence—if you will make me the partner of your hopes and fears, your joys and sorrows, I will smile when you smile—I will console you when you weep. I will serve you—upon my knees will I serve you;—I will never weary of doing your bidding. But—O God! do not, do not refuse me the only prayer which I have now to offer to mortal man!"
"Ellen, this is impossible! My position—my interest—my plans render marriage—at present—a venture in which I cannot embark."
"You reject my supplication—you throw me back into disgrace and despair," cried Ellen: "Oh! reflect well upon what you are doing!"
"Listen to me," said Mr. Greenwood. "Ask me any thing that money can purchase, and you shall have it. Say the word, and you shall have a house—a home—furnished in all imaginable splendour; and measures shall be taken to conceal your situation from the world."
"No—this is not what I ask," returned Ellen. "The wealth of the universe cannot recompense me if I am to pass as Mr. Greenwood's pensioned mistress!"
"Then what, in the name of heaven, do you now require of me?" demanded the Member of Parliament impatiently.
"That you should do me justice," was the reply, while Ellen still remained upon her knees.
"Do you justice!" repeated Greenwood: "and how have I wronged you? If I deliberately set to work to seduce you—if, by art and treachery, I wiled you away from the paths of duty—if, by false promises, I allured you from a prosperous and happy sphere,—then might you talk to me of justice. But no: I knew not whom I was about to meet when the old hag came to me that day, and said——"
"Enough! enough! I understand you," cried Ellen, rising from her suppliant position, and clasping her hands despairingly together. "You consider that you purchased me as you would have bought any poor girl who, through motives of vanity, gain, or lust, would have sold her person to the highest bidder! Oh—now I understand you! But, one word, Mr. Greenwood! If there were no such voluptuaries—such heartless libertines as you in this world, would there be so many poor unhappy creatures like me? In an access of despair—of folly—and of madness, I rushed upon a path which men like you alone open to women placed as I then was! Perhaps you consider that I am not worthy to become your wife? Fool that I was to seek redress—to hope for consolation at your hands! Your conduct to others—to my father—to—"
"Ellen! I command you to be silent! Remember our solemn compact on that day when we met in so strange and mysterious a manner;—remember that we pledged ourselves to mutual silence—silence with respect to all we know of each other! Do you wish to break that compact?"