s
carouse. At six o'clock he arose, and ordered his attendants to prepare
to set out without delay. When all was ready, he sent for Amabel, but
she refused to come downstairs, and finding his repeated messages of no
avail, he rushed into her room, and bore her, shrieking to his steed.

In an hour after this, they arrived at an old hall, belonging to the
earl, in the neighbourhood of Oxford. Amabel was entrusted to the care
of a female attendant, named Prudence, and towards evening, Rochester,
who was burning with impatience for an interview, learnt, to his
infinite disappointment, that she was so seriously unwell, that if he
forced himself into her presence, her life might be placed in jeopardy.
She continued in the same state for several days, at the end of which
time, the chirurgeon who attended her, and who was a creature of the
earl's, pronounced her out of danger. Rochester then sent her word by
Prudence that he must see her in the course of that day, and a few hours
after the delivery of the message, he sought her room. She was much
enfeebled by illness, but received him with great self-possession.

"I cannot believe, my lord," she said, "that you desire to destroy me,
and when I assure you--solemnly assure you, that if you continue to
persecute me thus, my death, will be the consequence, I am persuaded you
will desist, and suffer me to depart."

"Amabel," rejoined the earl, passionately, "is it possible you can be so
changed towards me? Nothing now interferes to prevent our union."

"Except my own determination to the contrary, my lord," she replied. "I
can never be yours."

"Wherefore not?" asked the earl, half angrily, half reproachfully.

"Because I know and feel that I should condemn myself to wretchedness,"
she replied. "Because--for since your lordship will force the truth from
me, I must speak out--I have learnt to regard your character in its true
light,--and because my heart is wedded to heaven."

"Pshaw!" exclaimed the earl, contemptuously; "you have been listening so
long to your saintly father's discourses, that you fancy them applicable
to yourself. But you are mistaken in me," he added, altering his tone;
"I see where the main difficulty lies. You think I am about to delude
you, as before, into a mock marriage. But I swear to you you are
mistaken. I love you so well that I would risk my temporal and eternal
happiness for you. It will rejoice me to raise you to my own rank--to
place you among