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."

Not by a word had Roland sought to interrupt his son,--nay, by a
feverish excitement which my heart understood in its secret sympathy,
he had seemed eagerly to court every syllable that could extenuate the
darkness of the offence, or even imply some less sordid motive for
the baseness of the means. But as the son now closed with the words of
unjust reproach and the accents of fierce despair,--closed a defence
that showed, in its false pride and its perverted eloquence, so utter a
blindness to every principle of that Honor which had been the father's
idol,--Roland placed his hand before the eyes that he had previously,
as if spell-bound, fixed on the hardened offender, and once more drawing
Fanny towards him, said,--

"His breath pollutes the air that innocence and honesty should breathe.
He says all in this house are at his command,--why do we stay? Let us
go." He turned towards the door, and Fanny with him.

Meanwhile the louder sounds below had been silenced for some moments;
but I heard a step in the hall. Vivian started, and placed himself
before us.

"No, no; you cannot leave me thus, Miss Trevanion. I resign you,--be it
so; I do not even ask for pardon. But to leave this house thus, without
carriage, without attendants, without explanation! The blame falls on
me,--it shall do so; but at least vouchsafe me the right to repair what
I yet can repair of the wrong, to protect all that is left to me,--your
name."

As he spoke he did not perceive (for he was facing us, and with his back
to the door) that a new actor had noiselessly entered on the scene, and,
pausing by the threshold, heard his last words.

"The name of Miss Trevanion, sir,--and from what?" asked the new comer
as he advanced and surveyed Vivian with a look that, but for its quiet,
would have seemed disdain.

"Lord Castleton!" exclaimed Fanny, lifting up the face she had buried in
her hands.

Vivian recoiled in dismay, and gnashed his teeth.

"Sir," said the marquis, "I await your reply; for not even you, in my
presence, shall imply that on