of those treasured principles which he has maintained
through good repute and bad repute--Oh, do not dream of such an
impossibility! If you meet at all, you must be the wax, he the seal--you
must receive, he must bestow, an absolute impression."

"That," said Peveril, "were unreasonable. I will frankly avow to you,
Alice, that I am not a sworn bigot to the opinions entertained by my
father, much as I respect his person. I could wish that our Cavaliers,
or whatsoever they are pleased to call themselves, would have some more
charity towards those who differ from them in Church and State. But to
hope that I would surrender the principles in which I have lived, were
to suppose me capable of deserting my benefactress, and breaking the
hearts of my parents."

"Even so I judged of you," answered Alice; "and therefore I asked this
interview, to conjure that you will break off all intercourse with our
family--return to your parents--or, what will be much safer, visit the
continent once more, and abide till God send better days to England, for
these are black with many a storm."

"And can you bid me go, Alice?" said the young man, taking her
unresisting hand; "can you bid me go, and yet own an interest in my
fate?--Can you bid me, for fear of dangers, which, as a man, as a
gentleman, and a loyal one, I am bound to show my face to, meanly
abandon my parents, my friends, my country--suffer the existence of
evils which I might aid to prevent--forego the prospect of doing such
little good as might be in my power--fall from an active and honourable
station, into the condition of a fugitive and time-server--Can you bid
me do all this, Alice? Can you bid me do all this, and, in the same
breath, bid farewell for ever to you and happiness?--It is impossible--I
cannot surrender at once my love and my honour."

"There is no remedy," said Alice, but she could not suppress a sigh
while she said so--"there is no remedy--none whatever. What we might
have been to each other, placed in more favourable circumstances, it
avails not to think of now; and, circumstanced as we are, with open
war about to break out betwixt our parents and friends, we can be but
well-wishers--cold and distant well-wishers, who must part on this spot,
and at this hour, never meet again."

"No, by Heaven!" said Peveril, animated at the same time by his own
feelings, and by the sight of the emotions which his companion in
vain endeavoured to suppress,--"No, by Heaven!"