_Ind._ His actions, sir; his eyes have only made me think he designed to make me the partner of his heart. The goodness and gentleness of his demeanour made me misinterpret all. 'Twas my own hope, my own passion, that deluded me; he never made one amorous advance to me. His large heart, and bestowing hand, have only helped the miserable; nor know I why, but from his mere delight in virtue, that I have been his care and the object on which to indulge and please himself with pouring favours. _Mr. Seal._ Madam, I know not why it is, but I, as well as you, am methinks afraid of entering into the matter I came about; but 'tis the same thing as if we had talked never so distinctly----he ne'er shall have a daughter of mine. _Ind._ If you say this from what you think of me, you wrong yourself and him. Let not me, miserable though I may be, do injury to my benefactor. No, sir, my treatment ought rather to reconcile you to his virtues. If to bestow without a prospect of return; if to delight in supporting what might, perhaps, be thought an object of desire, with no other view than to be her guard against those who would not be so disinterested; if these actions, sir, can in a careful parent's eye commend him to a daughter, give yours, sir, give her to my honest, generous Bevil. What have I to do but sigh, and weep, and rave, run wild, a lunatic in chains, or, hid in darkness, mutter in distracted starts and broken accents my strange, strange story! _Mr. Seal._ Take comfort, madam. _Ind._ All my comfort must be to expostulate in madness, to relieve with frenzy my despair, and shrieking to demand of fate why--why was I born to such variety of sorrows. _Mr. Seal._ If I have been the least occasion---- _Ind._ No, 'twas Heaven's high will I should be such; to be plundered in my cradle! tossed on the seas! and even there an infant captive! to lose my mother, hear but of my father! to be adopted! lose my adopter! then plunged again into worse calamities! _Mr. Seal._ An infant captive! _Ind._ Yet then, to find the most charming of mankind, once more to set me free from what I thought the last distress, to load me with his services, his bounties, and his favours; to support my very life in a way that stole, at the same time, my very soul itself from me. _Mr. Seal._ And has young Bevil been this worthy man? _Ind._ Yet then, again, this very man to take another! without leaving me the right, the pretence of easing my fond heart with tears! For, oh! I can't reproach him, though the same hand that raised me to this height now throws me down the precipice. _Mr. Seal._ Dear lady! Oh, yet one moment's patience: my heart grows full with your affliction.--But yet there's something in your story that---- _Ind._ My portion here is bitterness and sorrow. _Mr. Seal._ Do not think so. Pray answer me: does Bevil know your name and family?