"Nor would now, Miss Walladmor: my life should be at your service, if that would promote your happiness; any thing but----my honor."
"I am to understand then that you think your honor concerned in refusing what I was going to have asked you: for I perceive that you apprehend what it was."
"I will not affect, Miss Walladmor, to misapprehend what it is you wish: the prisoner is committed to the soldiers under my command; and you wish me to favor his escape."
Miss Walladmor bowed her assent.
"But, my dear Miss Walladmor, this is quite impossible: believe me, it is: even if my duty as a military man did not forbid me to engage in such an act, which in me would be held criminal in the highest degree, I fear that it would be wholly thrown away: for this person, the prisoner I mean, is perfectly mad. I beg your pardon, Miss Walladmor: I did not mean to distress you: but what I meant to say was--that, if he were liberated, actuated by such views as appear to govern him at present, I fear that he would linger in this neighbourhood: he would inevitably be recaptured: and I should have violated my duty as a soldier without at all forwarding your wishes."
Perceiving that Miss Walladmor looked perplexed and agitated, and incapable of speaking, Sir Charles went on:
"Much of his later conduct may not have reached your ears: many acts attributed to him----"
"Sir Charles," interrupted Miss Walladmor, bursting into tears, "you know well that those, who have once lost their footing in the world's favor, and are become unfortunate, meet with but little tenderness or justice in the constructions or reports of any thing they may do. Every hand, it seems to me, is raised against a falling man. But, let the unhappy prisoner have done what he may, you have yourself suggested an apology for him: and you distress me far less when you advert to it, than when you appear to forget it."
"I do not forget it, Miss Walladmor: believe me, I do not: neither will it be forgotten in a court of justice. So much the less can it be necessary that in such a cause you should put any thing to the hazard of a false interpretation amongst censorious people, who are less capable of appreciating your motives than myself."
"Oh, Sir Charles Davenant!" exclaimed Miss Walladmor, "do not allude to such considerations: any other than myself they might become; but not me, who have been indebted to him of whom we are speaking three times for my own life."