deny your
right to step between me and the object dearer to me than life.

"Oh!"--and here he stretched forth his hands towards Fanny--"Oh, Miss
Trevanion, do not refuse me one prayer, however you condemn me. Let me
see you alone but for one moment; let me but prove to you that, guilty
as I may have been, it was not from the base motives you will hear
imputed to me,--that it was not the heiress I sought to decoy, it was
the woman I sought to win; oh, hear me--"

"No, no," murmured Fanny, clinging closer to Roland, "do not leave
me. If, as it seems, he is your son, I forgive him; but let him go,--I
shudder at his very voice!"

"Would you have me indeed, annihilate the memory of the bond between
us?" said Roland, in a hollow voice; "would you have me see in you only
the vile thief, the lawless felon,--deliver you up to justice, or strike
you to my feet? Let the memory still save you, and begone!"

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 honor 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 grip 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; an