“No, never, my angel!” cried he, “can I forget that I have seen and loved you. I might sleep for ages; and, if I awakened at all, it would be with your image imprinted as strongly as ever upon my heart. You now see a man prepared for the most desperate courses in order to obtain you. Listen for a moment. In the neighbourhood, a coach stands ready to carry us far from every scene where you have hitherto been known. Consent, and I procure for you (which is now within my power) a reversal of your father’s attainder. You shall again possess the domains where your fathers for ages back have been held in almost regal veneration, and where you spent the pleasant years of your own youth. Deny me, and to-morrow your reputation is blasted for ever. The least plausible tale, you well know, would be received and believed by society, if told respecting Mrs Macfarlane.” “Profligate wretch!” exclaimed the unfortunate lady; “can I believe my ears when they tell me that such wickedness exists in a human bosom? Look, Sir, at this infant—were there no principles of virtue within me to dictate a contemptuous rejection of your proposals, do you think that I could leave this innocent to pine and die under the cold neglect of strangers, or to survive to a less blessed life with the stigma of a disgraced mother fixed for ever upon her? Were I the basest woman that ever lived, as you seem to think me, would nature permit so awful a violation of her laws? Could I leave my child, and not next moment be struck dead by fire from heaven for my crime? The alternative, indeed, is awful. Well you know the point upon which I am most easily affected. Base, however, as you avow yourself, I cannot yet suppose that you could be guilty of a trick so worthy of the devil himself, as to blast the reputation, where you could not fix the real cause of infamy.” “Do not flatter yourself too much on that score,” rejoined Cayley; “you do not now see a man actuated by ordinary principles. I am tortured and confounded by an impetuous passion, which you have excited. If you take from me all hope of a consent to my first proposal, I must endeavour to bring you into my power by the second. To-morrow, did I say? Nay, I will go this night, and tell every man I know that you are the slave of my passion. Not a lady in Edinburgh but will know of it to-morrow before she has left her pillow. You will _then_, I think, see the necessity of consenting to the scheme of flight which I now put into your power.” He pronounced these words in such a disordered and violent manner, that the unhappy lady sat for some time unable to reply. She hardly recovered her senses till she heard the outer door clang behind him, as he went upon the demoniac purpose which he had threatened.