_Lord G._ So, now to get thorough this piece of drudgery. There's a meanness in my proceeding, and my compunction is just. Oh, the dear, lost possessor of my heart; lost, irrecoverably lost! _Enter MISS ALTON, from the Bottom of the Scene._ _Miss Alton._ A pretty employment I am sent upon! _Lord G._ [_To himself._] Could she but know the sacrifice I am ready to make! _Miss Alton._ [_To herself._] The very picture of a lover, if absence of mind marks one. It is unpleasant for me to interrupt a man I never saw, but I shall deliver my message very concisely.--My lord---- _Lord G._ [_Turning._] Madam. [_Both start and stand in surprise._] Astonishment! Miss Alton! my charming fugitive? _Miss Alton._ How, Mr. Heartly--Lord Gayville! _Lord G._ My joy and my surprise are alike unutterable. But I conjure you, madam, tell me by what strange circumstance do I meet you here? _Miss Alton._ [_Aside._] Now assist me, honest pride! assist me, resentment. _Lord G._ You spoke to me--Did you know me? _Miss Alton._ No otherwise, my lord, than as Miss Alscrip's lover. I had a message from her to your lordship. _Lord G._ For Heaven's sake, madam, in what capacity? _Miss Alton._ In one, my lord, not very much above the class of a servant. _Lord G._ Impossible, sure! It is to place the brilliant below the foil--to make the inimitable work of nature secondary to art and defect. _Miss Alton._ It is to take refuge in a situation that offers me security against suspicious obligation; against vile design; against the attempts of a seducer--It is to exercise the patience, that the will, and perhaps the favour, of Heaven meant to try. _Lord G._ Cruel, cruel to yourself and me--Could I have had a happiness like that of assisting you against the injustice of fortune--and when to be thus degraded was the alternative?-- _Miss Alton._ My lord, it is fit I should be explicit. Reflect upon the language you have held to me; view the character in which you present yourself to this family; and then pronounce in whose breast we must look for a sense of degradation. _Lord G._ In mine, and mine alone. I confess it--Hear nevertheless my defence--My actions are all the result of love. And culpable as I may seem, my conscience does not reproach me with---- _Miss Alton._ Oh, my lord, I readily believe you--You are above its reproaches--qualities, that are infamous and fatal, in one class of life, create applause and conscientious satisfaction in another. _Lord G._ Infamous and fatal qualities! What means my lovely accuser? _Miss Alton._ That to steal or stab is death in common life: but when one of your lordship's degree sets his hard heart upon the destruction of a woman, how glorious is his success! How consummate his triumph, when he can follow the theft of her affections by the murder of her honour. _Enter MISS ALSCRIP softly behind._ _Miss Als._ I wonder how it goes on. _Lord G._ Exalted! Adorable woman! _Miss Als._ Adorable! Ay, I thought how 'twould be!