The baronet took her hand, and reseating her by him, continued, "No, my Mary; you shall not leave me unless you honestly avow what your sentiments are towards the Count Sobieski. You know, my sweet girl, that I have tried to make you regard me as a father—to induce you to receive from my love the treble affection of your deceased parents and my lamented wife. If her dear niece do not deny this, she cannot treat me with reserve."
Miss Beaufort was unable to speak. Sir Robert proceeded:
"I will not overwhelm your shrinking delicacy by repeating the inquiry whether I have mistaken the source of your recent and present emotion; only allow me to bestow some encouragement on the count's attachment, should he claim my services in its behalf."
Mary drew her uncle's hand to her lips, and whilst her dropping tears fell upon it, she threw herself, like a confiding child, on her knees, and replied in a timid voice: "I should be a monster of ingratitude could I hide anything from you, my dearest sir, after this goodness! I confess that I do regard the Count Sobieski more than any being on earth. Who could see and know him and think it possible to become another's?"
"And you shall be his, my darling Mary!" cried the baronet, mingling his own blissful tears with hers. "I once hoped to have contrived an attachment between you and Pembroke, but Heaven has decreed it better. When you and Thaddeus are united, I shall be happy; I may then die in peace."
Miss Beaufort sighed heavily. She could not yet quite participate in her uncle's rapture. She thought that she had insulted and disgusted the count by her late behavior, beyond his excuse, and was opening her lips to urge it again, when the object of their conversation appeared at a short distance, coming towards them.
Full of renewed trepidation, she burst from the baronet's hand, and taking to flight, left her uncle to meet Sobieski alone.
Sir Robert's anxious question on the same subject received a more rapid reply from Thaddeus than had proceeded from the reluctant Miss Beaufort. The animated gratitude of Sobieski, the ardent yet respectful manner with which he avowed her eminence in his heart above all other women, convinced the baronet that Mary's retreating delicacy had misinformed her. A complete explanation was the consequence; and Thaddeus, who had not been more sanguine in his hopes than was his lovely mistress in hers, now allowed the clouds over his so lately darkened eyes to disappear.
Impatient to see these two beings, so dear to his soul, repose confidently in each other's affection, the moment Sir Robert returned to the house, he asked his sister for Miss Beaufort. Miss Dorothy replied that she had seen her about half an hour ago retire to her own apartments; the baronet, therefore, sent a servant to beg that she would meet him in the library.
This message found her in a paroxysm of distress. She reproached herself for her imprudence, her temerity, her unwomanly conduct, in having given away her heart to a man who she again began to torment herself by believing had never desired it. She remembered that her weakness, not her sincerity, had betrayed this humiliating secret to Sir Robert; and nearly distracted, she lay on the bed, almost hoping that she was in a miserable dream, when her maid entered with the baronet's commands.