“That you should leave me, Theresa, and go where you would, so it were not within a hundred miles of this place—but better to France or Italy; all that wealth could procure you, you should have; and my love would be yours above all things, even although we never meet, until we meet in heaven.” “Heaven, sir, is for the innocent and faithful, not for the liar and the traitor! But how shall this avail any thing to save you, if I consent to do it? I must know all; I must see all clearly, before I act.” “Are you strong enough to bear what I shall say to you, my poor Theresa?” “Else had I not borne to hear what you _have_ said to me.” “It is the secretary of state, then, who has discovered our plot. He is himself half inclined to join us; but he is a weak, interested, selfish being, although of vast wealth, great influence, and birth most noble. Now, he has a daughter—” “Ah!” the wretched girl started as if an ice-bolt had shot to her very heart, “and you—you would wed her!” “That is to say, _he_ would have me wed her; and on that condition joins our party. And so our lives, and England’s liberties, should be preserved by your glorious sacrifice.” “I must think, then—I must think,” she answered, burying her head in her hands, in truth, to conceal the agony of her emotions, and to gain time, not for deliberation, but to compose her mind and clear her voice for speech. And he stood gazing on her, with the cold, cutting eye, the calm, sarcastic sneer, of a very Mephistopheles, believing that she was about to yield, and inwardly mocking the very weakness, on which he had played, to his own base and cruel purposes. But in a moment she arose and confronted him, pale, calm, majestical, most lovely in her extremity of sorrow, but firm as a hero or a martyr.