o the Cape,
perhaps arose from a desire to avoid the subject which was nearest his
nephew's heart; but Arthur broke out, interrupting him--"If you had told
me this tale sooner, I believe you would have spared me and yourself
a great deal of pain and disappointment; and I should not have found
myself tied to an engagement from which I can't, in honour, recede."

"No, begad, we've fixed you--and a man who's fixed to a seat in
Parliament, and a pretty girl, with a couple of thousand a year, is
fixed to no bad thing, let me tell you," said the old man.

"Great Heavens, sir!" said Arthur, "are you blind? Can't you see?"

"See what, young gentleman?" asked the other.

"See, that rather than trade upon this secret of Amory's," Arthur cried
out, "I would go and join my father-in-law at the hulks! See, that
rather than take a seat in Parliament as a bribe from Clavering for
silence, I would take the spoons off the table! See, that you have given
me a felon's daughter for a wife; doomed me to poverty and shame; cursed
my career when it might have been--when it might have been so different
but for you! Don't you see that we have been playing a guilty game, and
have been overreached;--that in offering to marry this poor girl,
for the sake of her money, and the advancement she would bring, I was
degrading myself, and prostituting my honour?"

"What in Heaven's name do you mean, sir?" cried the old man.

"I mean to say that there is a measure of baseness which I can't pass,"
Arthur said. "I have no other words for it, and am sorry if they hurt
you. I have felt, for months past, that my conduct in this affair has
been wicked, sordid, and worldly. I am rightly punished by the event,
and having sold myself for money and a seat in Parliament, by losing
both."

"How do you mean that you lose either?" shrieked the old gentleman. "Who
the devil's to take your fortune or your seat away from you? By G--,
Clavering shall give 'em to you. You shall have every shilling of eighty
thousand pounds."

"I'll keep my promise to Miss Amory, sir," said Arthur.

"And, begad, her parents shall keep theirs to you."

"Not so, please God," Arthur answered. "I have sinned, but, Heaven help
me, I will sin no more. I will let Clavering off from that bargain which
was made without my knowledge. I will take no money with Blanche but
that which was originally settled upon her; and I will try to make her
happy. You have done it. You have brought this on