“How I have longed for this moment!—this moment, which proves one of torture! Ellen, Ellen, you never loved me, or you could not have done what you have done. But I was resolved to see you again.—Yes, if heaven and hell had conspired against me, I would have gazed upon that face again.” She hid her face with her hands. “No,” he said, and forcibly removed them, “I will look upon those features. It was the recollection of those eyes, of that brow, those lips, which made me cling to life, while they induced me to hazard it a thousand times to gain another sight of them; it was to gaze on them that I practised the imposture by which I escaped from my prison; it was to gaze on them that I preserved my life, though treated as a spy, a prisoner, and a maniac!” Ellen shook from head to foot. Fear, simple, deadly fear, absorbed every other feeling. She spoke not, she struggled not. “Ellen, do you love me still? Have you thought of me in absence? Have you wept for me? Is your heart faithful?” A horrible surmise crossed her. Surely he could not contemplate the idea of taking her back.—“Do you love me, Ellen?” he repeated, and he still held her hands. “I pity you from the bottom of my heart.” “Do you love me?” and he dashed her hands from him. “No!” she exclaimed, clasping them earnestly, “No! my whole heart, soul, and affections are Algernon’s,” and she sank on the floor. “And do I live to hear you avow your guilt? Shameless, abandoned creature! You, whom I so worshipped! now, now,—in truth my brain will madden!” He struck his forehead with his clenched hands. Then looking round, “These are my children, are they not?—I believed them mine. Yes, yes, they are mine, and mine they shall be! Come with me, children; you shall not remain to be contaminated by the example of a creature who glories in her shame. And this,” he added, and lifted the little Agnes from the floor, “this, this is _his_ child! Take it,—take it, before I commit any crime I may repent of!” Ellen rushed to it, tore it from him, and hugged it to her bosom. “But these are mine!” he continued, and “these are mine, by every law of nature and of man!” He seized one in each hand. She flew to him,—she clung round his feet. He looked down on her in triumph. “Oh, spare my children! Oh, Charles, have mercy upon me,” and she desperately held the children who clung round her. At this moment Captain Wareham, who had heard the tumult, entered, “Captain Wareham, you see a man who claims his children—his children—by the law of the land, his! I conclude you will not interfere with the exercise of my rights as a free-born Englishman.” Ellen had sunk exhausted and sobbing on the floor, feeling that her father would protect her, and preserve her children. “Surely, Mr. Cresford, this is not the manner in which an Englishman, and a gentleman, would enforce his rights.”