Emmeline was too weak to bear an address of this sort. The feebleness of her frame ill seconded the resolution of her mind; which, notwithstanding the struggles of pity and regard for Delamere, which she could not entirely silence, was immoveably determined. Rallying therefore her spirits, and summoning her fortitude to answer him, she said--'How _can_ you, Sir, solicit a woman, whom you wish to make your wife, to break a promise so solemn as that I have given to your father? Could you hereafter have any dependance on one, who holds her integrity so lightly? and should you not with great reason suspect that with her, falsehood and deception might become habitual?' 'Not at all,' answered Delamere. 'Your promise to my father is nugatory; for it ought never to have been given. He took an unfair advantage of your candour and your timidity; and all that you said ought not to bind _you_; since it was extorted from you by _him_ who had no right to make such conditions.' 'What! has a father no right to decide to whom he will entrust the happiness of his son, and the honour of his posterity? Alas! Delamere, you argue against yourself; you only convince me that I ought not to put the whole happiness of my life into the hands of a man, who will so readily break thro' his first duties. The same impatient, pardon me, if I say the same selfish spirit, which now urges you to set paternal authority at defiance, will perhaps hereafter impel you, with as little difficulty, to quit a wife of whom you may be weary, for any other person whom caprice or novelty may dress in the perfections you now fancy I possess. Ah! Delamere! shall I have a right to expect tenderness and faith from a man whom I have assisted in making his parents unhappy; and who has by my means embittered the evening of their lives to whom he owes his own? Do you think that a rebellious and unfeeling son is likely to make a good husband, a good father?' 'Death and madness!' cried Delamere, relapsing into all the violence of his nature--'what do you mean by all this! Selfish! rebellious! unfeeling!--am I then _so_ worthless, _so_ detestable in your eyes?'