“Would it were mine!” exclaimed Marion, with a look of abandoned anguish; “only mine. The thought of death would be easier to endure than the sorrows I have already!”
Walter comprehended not the meaning of her wild words. Lora better understood their import.
Neither had time to reflect upon them: for, on the instant of their utterance, Marion rose to her feet, and walked with a determined air towards the door of the apartment.
“Where are you going, dear cousin?” asked Lora, slightly frayed at Marion’s resolute mien.
“To Captain Scarthe,” was the firm rejoinder. “To fling myself at his feet—prostrate, if he please it; to ask him the price of my father’s life.”
Before either cousin or brother could interfere, to oppose or strengthen her resolution, the self-appointed suppliant had passed out of the room.
Volume Three—Chapter Seventeen.
The sentence passed upon Sir Marmaduke had given Scarthe a new string to his bow; and the crisis had now arrived for testing its strength.