Bacon wheeled partly upon his heel, as if endeavouring to force himself out of the room, without answering the choleric old Cavalier, but seeing Virginia turn her head and cast an indignant glance at the offender, his own hard schooled feelings broke forth also. "To no particular motive, Sir, are you indebted for this visit: it was the result of the purest accident. I knew not that your Excellency was in the house, and came into this room in the ordinary free and unchallenged mode of intercourse, to which the inmates of this most hospitable and generous family are accustomed."
"Ay, Sir Stripling, and unless I am grossly deceived, your intercourse has not gone unchallenged for nothing."
"To what is your Excellency pleased to allude."
"Have you not studiously endeavoured to undermine the most important family arrangements of those who cherished and protected your infancy? Have you not stung the bosom that warmed you into existence? Have you not been callous to the claims of gratitude, due alike to the living and the dead? Have you not attempted to beguile the only daughter of your patron into a disgraceful alliance?"
Bacon resisted the mild and persuasive endeavours of Mrs. Fairfax to lead him from the room, whence Virginia had already departed, while he replied, drawing himself up to an erect and perfectly composed and dignified attitude,
"If your Excellency chooses so far to forget, what is alike due to your station—to yourself, to the present company, and to me, as to permit yourself to ask such questions, you cannot expect me so far to forget myself as to answer them!" and with this reply he left the room.
The Governor, after indulging in the most vehement bursts of passion, and threats of vengeance against Bacon, should he dare to connect himself with his family, and in vain endeavours to extort a promise from Mrs. Fairfax, never to give her consent, left the house in the most towering and ungovernable rage.
He had scarcely crossed the threshold, before Bacon returned to the same room, leading Virginia by the hand, having held a very interesting conversation with her in another apartment. Mrs. Fairfax was sitting apparently absorbed in the most painful reflections. As the youthful pair entered, a slight clearing away of the clouds which had gathered upon her countenance might be perceived. They walked deliberately up to where she sat, and seated themselves one on each side of her: when Bacon thus spoke—
"It was not my intention, dear madam, thus to intrude upon your sorrows, but I may be pardoned for presenting myself as a petitioner at your feet, when another, high in station and dignity, has thought proper to forget those claims. Had he confined himself to the legitimate object of his mission, I had perhaps still forborne, but when he has stepped out of his way rudely to thrust me before you as the disorganizer of your family arrangements, and as the serpent who has stolen into your house in order to poison your brightest hopes and fondest anticipations, I have thought it became me at once to state to you how far I have offended.
"It is true, dear madam, that I have not been insensible to the many charms of your daughter's person and disposition. You have witnessed, I would fain hope, not unobservantly, the dear delights of our first childish intercourse, when our minds and hearts were drawn together by an affection and a congeniality of taste and sentiment which we supposed, if we thought of it at all, was purely fraternal; and then when our minds began to expand, and our affections to assume and to display their real character, and finally when we came thoroughly to understand each other and ourselves, you were not a heedless spectator of these progressive changes and developments; and having seen, I cannot believe that you would have permitted this mutual affection to grow to its present maturity and strength, intending to deny its sanction at the last, when the cure might so easily have been made by nipping the tender flower in the bud. Speak, I pray you madam! Our fate hangs upon your words!"