"My dearest child knows that I have not pressed her union; but Sir Willmott is so anxious—so attached—and, I must say, that my grey hairs would go peacefully to the grave were I to see her his wife. I am almost inclined to think my Constance capricious and unjust upon this point; but I am sure her own good sense, her regard for her father——"
"Merciful powers!" interrupted Constance, wildly; "and is it really possible that you knew of his proposal? Ay, ay, you might have known that, but you could not know the awful, the horrid threat he held out to me, if I did not comply with his demand—ay, demand for an immediate union?
"It was very imprudent, very useless, in fact," said the baronet, peevishly, his mind reverting to the proposals of the Buccaneer, which he believed Burrell had communicated to Constantia; "very absurd to trouble you with the knowledge he possesses of my affairs—that is strange wooing—but good will arise from it, for you will now, knowing the great, the overpowering motive that I have for seeing your union accomplished——"
The baronet's sentence remained unfinished, for the look and manner of his daughter terrified him. She had risen from her knees, and stood, her eyelids straining from her glaring eyes, that were fixed upon her father, while her hands were extended, as if to shut out the figure upon which she still gazed.
"It is all madness—moon-struck madness," she exclaimed, and her arms dropped at either side as she spoke; "some cruel witchery surrounds me; but I will speak and break the spell. Father, you are not a murderer? you did not murder——" and she, too, whispered a name, as if it were one that the breath of heaven should not bear.
The baronet sprang from his seat, as if a musket ball had entered his heart.
"'T is false!" he exclaimed; "there is no blood upon my hand—look at it—look at it! Burrell has no proofs—unless that villain Dalton has betrayed me," he added, in a lower tone; "but I did not the act, the blood is on his head, and not on mine. Constance, my child, the only thing on earth now that can love me, do not curse—do not spurn me. I ask not your sacrifice, that I may be saved;—but do not curse me—do not curse your father."
The haughty baronet fell, humbled to the dust, at his daughter's feet, clasping her knees in awful emotion, but daring not to look upon the face of his own child.
It would be as vain to attempt, as it would be impossible to analyse, the feelings of that high-souled woman during moments of such intense misery. She neither spoke nor wept; nor did she assist her father, by any effort, to arise; but, without a sentence or a word, folding her mourning robe around her, she glided like a ghost forth from the chamber. When she returned, her step had lost its elasticity, and her eye its light; she moved as if in a heavy atmosphere, and her father did not dare to look upon her, as she seated herself by the chair he had resumed.
She took his hand, and put it, but did not press it, to her lips: he thought he felt a tear drop upon his burning fingers; but the long hair that fell over her brow concealed her face. He was the first to break the dreadful and oppressive stillness.