e reproach can be attached to the name of
that lady."

"Oh, moderate your tone to me, my Lord Castleton!" cried Vivian; "in
you, at least, there is one man I am not forbidden to brave and defy. It
was to save that lady from the cold ambition of her parents; it was to
prevent the sacrifice of her youth and beauty to one whose sole merits
are his wealth and his titles,--it was this that impelled me to the
crime I have committed; this that hurried me on to risk all for one hour
when youth at least could plead its cause to youth; and this gives me
now the power to say that it does rest with me to protect the name of
the lady, whom your very servility to that world which you have made
your idol forbids you to claim from the heartless ambition that would
sacrifice the daughter to the vanity of the parents. Ha! the future
Marchioness of Castleton on her way to Scotland with a penniless
adventurer! Ha! if my lips are sealed, who but I can seal the lips
of those below in my secret? The secret shall be kept, but on this
condition,--you shall not triumph where I have failed; I may lose what
I adored, but I do not resign it to another. Ha! have I foiled you, my
Lord Castleton? Ha, ha!"

"No, Sir; and I almost forgive you the villany you have not effected,
for informing me, for the first time, that had I presumed to
address Miss Trevanion, her parents at least would have pardoned the
presumption. Trouble not yourself as to what your accomplices may say.
They have already confessed their infamy and your own. Out of my path,
Sir!"

Then, with the benign look of a father and the lofty grace of a prince,
Lord Castleton advanced to Fanny. Looking round with a shudder, she
hastily placed her hand in his, and by so doing perhaps prevented some
violence on the part of Vivian, whose heaving breast and eye bloodshot,
and still unquailing, showed how little even shame had subdued his
fiercer passions. But he made no offer to detain them, and his tongue
seemed to cleave to his lips. Now, as Fanny moved to the door she passed
Roland, who stood motionless and with vacant looks, like an image of
stone; and with a beautiful tenderness, for which (even at this distant
date, recalling it) I say, "God requite thee, Fanny," she laid her other
hand on Roland's arm and said, "Come, too: your arm still."

But Roland's limbs trembled and refused to stir; his head, relaxing,
drooped on his breast, his eyes closed. Even Lord Castleton was so
struck (tho