Dorriforth heard this, standing silently by, with a manly scorn upon his countenance.
Miss Milner struggled to loose her hand, saying, “Excuse me from replying to you now, my Lord.”
In return, he lifted her hand eagerly to his lips, and began to devour it with kisses; when Dorriforth, with an instantaneous impulse, rushed forward, and struck him a violent blow in the face. Under the force of this assault, and the astonishment it excited, Lord Frederick staggered, and letting fall the hand of Miss Milner, her guardian immediately laid hold of it, and led her into the house.
She was terrified beyond description; and with extreme difficulty Mr. Dorriforth conveyed her to her own chamber, without taking her in his arms. When, by the assistance of her maid, he had placed her upon a sofa—covered with shame and confusion for what he had done, he fell upon his knees before her, and earnestly “Entreated her forgiveness for the indelicacy he had been guilty of in her presence.” And that he had alarmed her, and had forgot the respect which he thought sacredly her due, seemed the only circumstance which then dwelt upon his thoughts.
She felt the indecorum of the posture he had condescended to take, and was shocked. To see her guardian at her feet, struck her with a sense of impropriety, as if she had seen a parent there. All agitation and emotion, she implored him to rise, and, with a thousand protestations, declared, “That she thought the rashness of the action was the highest proof of his regard for her.”
Miss Woodley now entered; her care being ever employed upon the unfortunate, Lord Frederick had been the object of it: she had waited by his side, and, with every good purpose, had preached patience to him, while he was smarting under the pain, but more under the shame, of his chastisement. At first, his fury threatened a retort upon the servants around him (and who refused his entrance into the house) of the punishment he had received. But, in the certainty of an amende honorable, which must hereafter be made, he overcame the many temptations which the moment offered, and re-mounting his horse rode away from the scene of his disgrace.
No sooner had Miss Woodley entered the room, and Dorriforth had resigned to her the care of his ward, than he flew to the spot where he had left Lord Frederick, negligent of what might be the event if he still remained there. After enquiring, and being told that he was gone, Dorriforth returned to his own apartment; and with a bosom torn by more excruciating sensations than those which he had given to his adversary.
The reflection that struck him first with remorse, as he shut the door upon himself, was:—“I have departed from my character—from the sacred character, and the dignity of my profession and sentiments—I have departed from myself. I am no longer the philosopher, but the ruffian—I have treated with an unpardonable insult a young nobleman, whose only offence was love, and a fond desire to insinuate himself into the favour of his mistress. I must atone for this outrage in whatever manner he may choose; and the law of honour and of justice (though in this one instance contrary to the law of religion) enjoins, that if he demands my life in satisfaction for his wounded feelings, it is his due. Alas! that I could have laid it down this morning, unsullied with a cause for which it will make but inadequate atonement.”
His next reproach was—“I have offended and filled with horror, a beautiful young woman, whom it was my duty to have protected from those brutal manners, to which I myself have exposed her.”
Again—“I have drawn upon myself the just upbraidings of my faithful preceptor and friend; of the man in whose judgment it was my delight to be approved—above all, I have drawn upon myself the stings of my conscience.”