d destined for your
temporary abode. Fate has baffled my last chance of escape, and I have
only to give you my blessing, and send you from the castle with Mr.
Ratcliffe, who now leaves it; my own fate will soon be decided."

"Good Heaven, sir! can this be possible?" exclaimed Isabella. "O, why
was I freed from the restraint in which you placed me? or why did you
not impart your pleasure to me?"

"Think an instant, Isabella. Would you have had me prejudice in your
opinion the friend I was most desirous of serving, by communicating to
you the injurious eagerness with which he pursued his object? Could I do
so honourably, having promised to assist his suit?--But it is all over,
I and Mareschal have made up our minds to die like men; it only remains
to send you from hence under a safe escort."

"Great powers! and is there no remedy?" said the terrified young woman.

"None, my child," answered Vere, gently, "unless one which you would not
advise your father to adopt--to be the first to betray his friends."

"O, no! no!" she answered, abhorrently yet hastily, as if to reject
the temptation which the alternative presented to her. "But is there no
other hope--through flight--through mediation--through supplication?--I
will bend my knee to Sir Frederick!"

"It would be a fruitless degradation; he is determined on his course,
and I am equally resolved to stand the hazard of my fate. On one
condition only he will turn aside from his purpose, and that condition
my lips shall never utter to you."

"Name it, I conjure you, my dear father!" exclaimed Isabella. "What CAN
he ask that we ought not to grant, to prevent the hideous catastrophe
with which you are threatened?"

"That, Isabella," said Vere, solemnly, "you shall never know, until your
father's head has rolled on the bloody scaffold; then, indeed, you will
learn there was one sacrifice by which he might have been saved."

"And why not speak it now?" said Isabella; "do you fear I would flinch
from the sacrifice of fortune for your preservation? or would you
bequeath me the bitter legacy of life-long remorse, so oft as I shall
think that you perished, while there remained one mode of preventing the
dreadful misfortune that overhangs you?"

"Then, my child," said Vere, "since you press me to name what I would a
thousand times rather leave in silence, I must inform you that he will
accept for ransom nothing but your hand in marriage, and that conferred
before midnight th