ven energetic tone, 'the question
you ask is neither fair nor manly; but, as you choose to press me, I
will say that it requires no recollection of a third person to make me
decline the honour which you intended me.'

'Miss Dacre! you speak in anger, almost in bitterness. Believe me,' he
added, rather with an air of pique, 'had I imagined from your conduct
towards me that I was an object of dislike, I would have spared you this
inconvenience and myself this humiliation.'

'At Castle Dacre, my conduct to all its inmates is the same. The Duke
of St. James, indeed, hath both hereditary and personal claims to be
considered here as something better than a mere inmate; but your Grace
has elected to dissolve all connection with our house, and I am not
desirous of assisting you in again forming any.'

'Harsh words, Miss Dacre!'

'Harsher truth, my Lord Duke,' said Miss Dacre, rising from her seat,
and twisting a pen with agitated energy. 'You have prolonged this
interview, not I. Let it end, for I am not skilful in veiling my mind;
and I should regret, here at least, to express what I have hitherto
succeeded in concealing.'

'It cannot end thus,' said his Grace: 'let me, at any rate, know the
worst. You have, if not too much kindness, at least too much candour, to
part sol' 'I am at a loss to understand,' said Miss Dacre, 'what other
object our conversation can have for your Grace than to ascertain my
feelings, which I have already declared more than once, upon a point
which you have already more than once urged. If I have not been
sufficiently explicit or sufficiently clear, let me tell you, sir, that
nothing but the request of a parent whom I adore would have induced me
even to speak to the person who had dared to treat him with contempt.'
'Miss Dacre!'

'You are moved, or you affect to be moved. 'Tis well: if a word from a
stranger can thus affect you, you may be better able to comprehend the
feelings of that person whose affections you have so long outraged; your
equal in blood, Duke of St. James, your superior in all other respects.'

'Beautiful being!' said his Grace, advancing, falling on his knee, and
seizing her hand. 'Pardon, pardon, pardon! Like your admirable sire,
forgive; cast into oblivion all remembrance of my fatal youth. Is not
your anger, is not this moment, a bitter, an utter expiation for all
my folly, all my thoughtless, all my inexperienced folly; for it was
no worse? On my knees, and in the face