Alice, however new such a scene, and, above all, her own emotions, might be, was highly endowed with that exquisite delicacy which is imprinted in the female heart, to give warning of the slightest approach to impropriety in a situation like hers.
“Rise, rise, Master Peveril,” she said; “do not do yourself and me this injustice—we have done both wrong—very wrong; but my fault was done in ignorance. O God! my poor father, who needs comfort so much—is it for me to add to his misfortunes? Rise!” she added more firmly; “if you retain this unbecoming posture any longer, I will leave the room and you shall never see me more.”
The commanding tone of Alice overawed the impetuosity of her lover, who took in silence a seat removed to some distance from hers, and was again about to speak. “Julian,” said she in a milder tone, “you have spoken enough, and more than enough. Would you had left me in the pleasing dream in which I could have listened to you for ever! but the hour of wakening is arrived.” Peveril waited the prosecution of her speech as a criminal while he waits his doom; for he was sufficiently sensible that an answer, delivered not certainly without emotion, but with firmness and resolution, was not to be interrupted. “We have done wrong,” she repeated, “very wrong; and if we now separate for ever, the pain we may feel will be but a just penalty for our error. We should never have met: meeting, we should part as soon as possible. Our farther intercourse can but double our pain at parting. Farewell, Julian; and forget we ever have seen each other!”
“Forget!” said Julian; “never, never. To you, it is easy to speak the word—to think the thought. To me, an approach to either can only be by utter destruction. Why should you doubt that the feud of our fathers, like so many of which we have heard, might be appeased by our friendship? You are my only friend. I am the only one whom Heaven has assigned to you. Why should we separate for the fault of others, which befell when we were but children?”
“You speak in vain, Julian,” said Alice; “I pity you—perhaps I pity myself—indeed, I should pity myself, perhaps, the most of the two; for you will go forth to new scenes and new faces, and will soon forget me; but, I, remaining in this solitude, how shall I forget?—that, however, is not now the question—I can bear my lot, and it commands us to part.”
“Hear me yet a moment,” said Peveril; “this evil is not, cannot be remediless. I will go to my father,—I will use the intercession of my mother, to whom he can refuse nothing—I will gain their consent—they have no other child—and they must consent, or lose him for ever. Say, Alice, if I come to you with my parents’ consent to my suit, will you again say, with that tone so touching and so sad, yet so incredibly determined—Julian, we must part?” Alice was silent. “Cruel girl, will you not even deign to answer me?” said her lover.
“I would refer you to my father,” said Alice, blushing and casting her eyes down; but instantly raising them again, she repeated, in a firmer and a sadder tone, “Yes, Julian, I would refer you to my father; and you would find that your pilot, Hope, had deceived you; and that you had but escaped the quicksands to fall upon the rocks.”
“I would that could be tried!” said Julian. “Methinks I could persuade your father that in ordinary eyes our alliance is not undesirable. My family have fortune, rank, long descent—all that fathers look for when they bestow a daughter’s hand.”
“All this would avail you nothing,” said Alice. “The spirit of my father is bent upon the things of another world; and if he listened to hear you out, it would be but to tell you that he spurned your offers.”
“You know not—you know not, Alice,” said Julian. “Fire can soften iron—thy father’s heart cannot be so hard, or his prejudices so strong, but I shall find some means to melt him. Forbid me not—Oh, forbid me not at least the experiment!”