“I am exhausted,” she said, “and cannot speak any longer; but I will not despair of you, father.  No, my dear papa,” she said, throwing her arms about his neck, laying her head upon his bosom, and bursting into tears, “I will not think that you could sacrifice your daughter.  You will relent for Lucy as Lucy did for you—­but I feel weak.  You know, papa, how this fever on my spirits has worn me down; and, after all, the day might come—­and come with bitterness and remorse to your heart—­when you may be forced to feel that although you made your Lucy a countess she did not remain a countess long.”

“What do you mean now?”

“Don’t you see, papa, that my heart is breaking fast?  If you will not hear my words—­if they cannot successfully plead for me—­let my declining health—­let my pale and wasted cheek—­let my want of spirits, my want of appetite—­and, above all, let that which you cannot see nor feel—­the sickness of my unhappy heart—­plead for me.  Permit me to go, dear papa; and will you allow me to lean upon you to my own room?—­for, alas!  I am not, after this painful excitement, able to go there myself.  Thank you, papa, thank you.”

He was thus compelled to give her his arm, and, in doing so, was surprised to feel the extraordinary tremor by which her frame was shaken.  On reaching her room, she turned round, and laying her head, with an affectionate and supplicating confidence, once more upon his breast, she whispered with streaming eyes, “Alas! my dear papa, you forget, in urging me to marry this hateful profligate, that my heart, my affections, my love—­in the fullest, and purest, and most disinterested sense—­are irrevocably fixed upon another; and Dunroe, all mean and unmanly as he is, knows this.”

“He knows that—­there, sit down—­why do you tremble so?—­Yes, but he knows that what you consider an attachment is a mere girlish fancy, a whimsical predilection that your own good-sense will show you the folly of at a future time.”

“Recollect, papa, that he has been extravagant, and is said to be embarrassed; the truth is, sir, that the man values not your daughter, but the property to which he thinks he will become entitled, and which I have no doubt will be very welcome to his necessities.  I feel that I speak truth, and as a test of his selfishness, it will be only necessary to acquaint him with the reappearance of my brother—­your son and heir—­and you will be no further troubled by his importunities.”

“Troubled by his importunity!  Why, girl, it’s I that am troubled with apprehension lest he might discover the existence of your brother, and draw off.”

One broad gaze of wonder and dismay she turned upon him, and her face became crimsoned with shame.  She then covered it with her open hands, and, turning round, placed her head upon the end of the sofa, and moaned with a deep and bursting anguish, on hearing this acknowledgment of deliberate baseness from his own lips.