"That you are surprised I should have entertained the idea?" added Georgiana, with an irony and bitterness which seemed lent her by despair. "My God! I foresaw all the terrors of this interview!" exclaimed Rainford with feverish impatience. "Then wherefore did you come?" demanded Georgiana. "Is it to expose me—to persecute _me_ who have never offended _you_, but who have suffered so deeply—deeply——" "Madam, I came to perform a painful duty," interrupted the highwayman; "and the sooner I accomplish it the better. Oh! you know not—you will not give me credit for the ineffable pity—the profound commiseration which I feel for you,—as well as the loathing—the abhorrence—the shame—the disgust in which I hold myself:—but I cannot recall the past. Would to God that I could!" "Then you mean me no harm?" exclaimed Georgiana eagerly. "Mean you harm, madam!" repeated Rainford enthusiastically: "merciful heavens! if to mitigate one single pang of the many—many with which your breast must throb, poor innocent sufferer that you are—a sufferer through my detestable crime,—if to relieve you of any portion of the load that weighs upon your mind—were that portion no heavier than a hair,—if to do this my life would suffice, I would lay it down, madam, at your feet! Think you that I glory in what I have done? No—no: bad as I am—criminal as I am—robber, plunderer as I am, and as you know me to be,—yet I have feelings—aye, and a conscience too! And, often—often, my lady, when the smile is upon my lip, that conscience is gnawing my heart's core—for I think of _you_! And all this is true as God's own justice is true,—true as that you are an innocent and a noble lady, and that I am a despicable villain!" And Tom Rain—the gallant, dashing, almost hair-brained Tom Rain—burst into tears. Georgiana gazed upon him in astonishment—in profound astonishment; and she was softened towards that bold and desperate man who wept on her account! "But wherefore have you sought me this evening?" she said, in a milder and more gentle tone than she had yet used during this remarkable—this solemnly interesting meeting. "It is not to demand your pardon, madam," returned Rainford, dashing away the tears from his manly countenance; "because _that_ you can never give! It is not to assert any presumed right to dictate to you in respect to your marriage, because _that_ were adding the most flagrant cruelty to the most atrocious wrong. But it is to inform your ladyship that if you contract this marriage with the Earl of Ellingham, you wed one who is——" "Who is what?" gasped Georgiana, almost suffocating. Rainford paused for a few moments: it required these few moments to enable him to conquer emotions of so terrible a nature that they almost choked his powers of utterance:—then, bending down until his very lips touched Georgiana's ear, and his hair mingled with hers, he whispered a few words in a faint and scarcely audible tone.