Again I caught hold of the guilty son, and again he broke from my grasp.
"It is," he said, folding his arms deliberately on his breast, "it is for me to command in this house: all who are within it must submit to my orders. You, sir, who hold reputation, name, and honour at so high a price, how can you fail to see that you would rob them from the lady whom you would protect from the insult of my affection? How would the world receive the tale of your rescue of Miss Trevanion? how believe that—Oh pardon me, madam,—Miss Trevanion—Fanny—pardon me—I am mad; only hear me—alone—alone—and then if you too say 'Begone,' I submit without a murmur; I allow no arbiter but you."
But Fanny still clung closer, and closer still, to Roland. At that moment I heard voices and the trampling of feet below, and supposing that the accomplices in this villany were mustering courage, perhaps, to mount to the assistance of their employer, I lost all the compassion that had hitherto softened my horror of the young man's crime, and all the awe with which that confession had been attended. I therefore, this time, seized the false Vivian with a gripe that he could no longer shake off, and said sternly—
"Beware how you aggravate your offence. If strife ensues, it will not be between father and son, and—"
Fanny sprang forward. "Do not provoke this bad, dangerous man. I fear him not. Sir, I will hear you, and alone."
"Never!" cried I and Roland simultaneously.
Vivian turned his look fiercely to me, and with a sullen bitterness to his father, and then, as if resigning his former prayer, he said—"Well then, be it so; even in the presence of those who judge me so severely, I will speak at least." He paused, and, throwing into his voice a passion that, had the repugnance at his guilt been less, would not have been without pathos, he continued to address Fanny: "I own that, when I first saw you, I might have thought of love, as the poor and ambitious think of the way to wealth and power. Those thoughts vanished, and nothing remained in my heart but love and madness. I was as a man in a delirium when I planned this snare. I knew but one object—saw but one heavenly vision. Oh, mine—mine at least in that vision—are you indeed lost to me for ever!"
There was that in this man's tone and manner which, whether arising from accomplished hypocrisy or actual if perverted feeling, would, I thought, find its way at once to the heart of a woman who, however wronged, had once loved him; and, with a cold misgiving, I fixed my eyes on Miss Trevanion. Her look, as she turned with a visible tremor, suddenly met mine, and I believe that she discerned my doubt; for after suffering her eyes to rest on my own, with something of mournful reproach, her lips curved as with the pride of her mother, and for the first time in my life I saw anger on her brow.
"It is well, sir, that you have thus spoken to me in the presence of others, for in their presence I call upon you to say, by that honour which the son of this gentleman may for a while forget, but cannot wholly forfeit,—I call upon you to say, whether by deed, word, or sign, I, Frances Trevanion, ever gave you cause to believe that I returned the feeling you say you entertained for me, or encouraged you to dare this attempt to place me in your power."
"No!" cried Vivian readily, but with a writhing lip—"no; but where I loved so deeply, periled all my fortune for one fair and free occasion to tell you so alone, I would not think that such love could meet only loathing and disdain. What!—has nature shaped me so unkindly, that where I love no love can reply? What!—has the accident of birth shut me out from the right to woo and mate with the highborn? For the last, at least, that gentleman in justice should tell you, since it has been his care to instil the haughty lesson into me, that my lineage is one that befits lofty hopes, and warrants fearless ambition. My hopes, my ambition—they were you! Oh, Miss Trevanion, it is true that to win you I would have braved the world's laws, defied every foe, save him who now rises before me. Yet, believe me, believe me, had I won what I dared to aspire to, you would not have been disgraced by your choice; and the name, for which I thank not my father, should not have been despised by the woman who pardoned my presumption,—nor by the man who now tramples on my anguish, and curses me in my desolation."