'Talk not so, beloved child,' said Montreville, 'a long life is before you. All the joys that ambition, all the joys that love can offer, are within your power. A father invites, implores, I will not say commands, you to accept them. The man of your choice, to whom the proudest might aspire, whom the coldest of your sex might love, entreats you to confirm him in the ways of virtue. Consent then to this union, on which my heart is set, while yet it can be hallowed by the blessing of your dying father.'
'Oh take pity on me,' Laura would have said, and 'league not with my weak heart to betray me,' but convulsive sobs were all that she could utter. 'You consent then,' said Montreville, choosing so to interpret her silence—'you have yielded to my entreaties, and made me the happiest of fathers.' 'No! no!' cried Laura, tossing her arms distractedly, 'I will do right though my heart should break. No, my father, my dear honoured father, for whom I would lay down my life, not even your entreaties shall prevail.'
'Ungrateful child,' said Montreville; 'what could you have pleaded for, that your father would have refused—your father whom anxiety for your welfare has brought to the gates of the grave, whose last feeling shall be love to you, whose last words shall bless you.'
'Oh most merciful, most gracious,' cried Laura, clasping her hands, and raising her eyes in resigned anguish, 'wilt thou suffer me to be tempted above what I am able to bear! Oh my dear father, if you have pity for misery unutterable, misery that cannot know relief, spare me now, and suffer me to think—if to think be yet possible.'
'Hear me but for one moment more,' said Montreville, who from the violence of her emotion gathered hopes of success. 'Oh no! no!' cried Laura, 'I must leave you while yet I have the power to do right.' And, darting from his presence, she shut herself into her chamber. There, falling on her knees, she mingled bitter expressions of anguish, with fervent prayers for support, and piteous appeals for mercy.
Becoming by degrees more composed, she endeavoured to fortify her resolution by every argument of reason and religion which had formerly guided her determination. She turned to the passages of Scripture which forbid the unequal yoke with the unbeliever; convinced that the prohibition applies no less to those whose lives are unchristian, than to those whose faith is unsound. She asked herself whether she was able to support those trials (the severest of all earthly ones,) which the wife of a libertine must undergo; and whether, in temptations which she voluntarily sought, and sorrows which she of choice encountered, she should be entitled to expect the divine support. 'Holy Father,' she cried, 'what peace can enter where thy blessing is withheld! and shall I dare to mock thee with a petition for that blessing on a union which thou has forbidden! May I not rather fear that this deliberate premeditated guilt may be the first step in a race of iniquity! May I not dread to share in the awful sentence of those who are joined to their idols, and be "let alone" to wander in the way that leadeth to destruction?'
Yet, as oft as her father's entreaties rose to her recollection, joined with the image of Hargrave—of Hargrave beseeching, of Hargrave impassioned—Laura's resolution faltered; and half-desirous to deceive herself, she almost doubted of the virtue of that firmness that could withstand a parent's wish. But Laura was habitually suspicious of every opinion that favoured her inclinations, habitually aware of the deceitfulness of her own heart; and she did not, unquestioned, harbour for a moment the insidious thought that flattered her strongest wishes. 'And had my father commended me to marry where I was averse,' said she, 'would I then have hesitated? Would my father's command have prevailed on me then to undertake duties which I was unlikely to perform? No: there I would have resisted. There, authority greater than a father's would have empowered me to resist; and I know that I should have resisted even unto death. And shall mere inclination give more firmness than a sense of duty! Yet, Oh dear father, think me not unmindful of all your love—or forgetful of a debt that began with my being. For your sake cold and hunger shall be light to me—for you poverty and toil shall be pleasing. But what solitary sorrow could equal the pang with which I should blush before my children for the vices of their father! What is the wasting of famine to the mortal anguish of watching the declining love, the transferred desires, the growing depravity of my husband!'
In thoughts and struggles like these, Laura passed the day alone. Montreville, though disappointed at his ill success with his daughter, was not without hope that a lover's prayers might prevail where a father's were ineffectual; and believing that the season of Laura's emotion was a favourable one for the attempt, he was anxious for the daily visit of Hargrave.
But, for the first time since his meeting with Laura, Hargrave did not appear. In her present frame, Laura felt his absence almost a relief; but Montreville was uneasy and half alarmed. It was late in the evening when a violent knocking at the house door startled Montreville, who was alone in his apartment; and the next minute, without being announced, Hargrave burst into the room. His hair was dishevelled, his dress neglected, and his eyes had a wildness which Montreville had never before seen in them. Abruptly grasping Montreville's hand, he said, in a voice of one struggling for composure, 'Have you performed your promise—have you spoken with Laura?'
'I have,' answered Montreville; 'and have urged her, till, had you seen her, you would yourself have owned that I went too far. But you look'—