“Father,” said she, “since you will not hear the voice of supplication, hear that of reason and truth.  Do not entertain a doubt, no, not for a moment, that if I am urged—­driven—­to this marriage, hateful and utterly detestable to me as it is, I shall hesitate to marry this man.  I say this, however, because I tell you that I am about to appeal to your interest in my true happiness for the last time.  Is it, then, kind; is it fatherly in you, sir, to exact from me the fulfilment of a promise given under circumstances that ought to touch your heart into a generous perception of the sacrifice which in giving it I made for your sake alone?  You were ill, and laboring under the apprehension of sudden death, principally, you said, in consequence of my refusal to become the wife of that man.  I saw this; and although the effort was infinitely worse than death to me, I did not hesitate one moment in yielding up what is at any time dearer to me than life—­my happiness—­that you might be spared.  Alas, my dear father, if you knew how painful it is to me to be forced to plead all this in my own defence, you would, you must, pity me.  A generous heart, almost under any circumstances, scorns to plead its own acts, especially when they are on the side of virtue.  But I, alas, am forced to it; am forced to do that which I would otherwise scorn and blush to do.”

“Lucy,” replied her father, who felt in his ambitious and tyrannical soul the full force, not only of what she said, but of the fraud he had practised on her, but which she never suspected:  “Lucy, my child, you will drive me mad.  Perhaps I am wrong; but at the same time my heart is so completely fixed upon this marriage, that if it be not brought about I feel I shall go insane.  The value of life would be lost to me, and most probably I shall die the dishonorable death of a suicide.”

“And have you no fear for me, my father—­no apprehension that I may escape from this my wretched destiny to the peace of the grave?  But you need not.  Thank God, I trust and feel that my regard for His precepts, and my perceptions of His providence, are too clear and too firm ever to suffer me to fly like a coward from the post in life which He has assigned me.  But why, dear father, should you make me the miserable victim of your ambition?—­I am not ambitious.”

“I know you are not:  I never could get an honorable ambition instilled into you.”

“I am not mean, however—­nay, I trust that I possess all that honest and honorable pride which would prevent me from doing an unworthy act, or one unbecoming either my sex or my position.”

“You would not break your word, for instance, nor render your father wretched, insane, mad, or, perhaps, cause his dreadful malady to return.  No—­no—­but yet fine talking is a fine thing.  Madam, cease to plead your virtues to me, unless you prove that you possess them by keeping your honorable engagement made to Lord Dunroe, through the sacred medium of your own father.  Whatever you may do, don’t attempt to involve me in your disgrace.”