Ferdinand had turned his despairing eyes on Alice, and saw her head bent on her bosom, with tears trickling down her cheeks. Those tears acted on his soul like dew on the parched earth, and, unconscious of the intention, he found himself at her side; he had taken her hand, he had murmured some indistinct sounds in her ear; but they suffused her face with blushes, and confused and agitated she withdrew her hand, and glided out of sight to a seat behind the window curtain. Ferdinand followed her with his eyes; but while he exultingly felt that her pure image possessed him wholly, he shrunk from the recollection of how unworthy his transgressions had made him of aspiring to the possession of so spotless a being. Nay, were it possible that penitence could so wash his stains away, as to restore him to the self-respect which is indispensible to the manly character, and above all to the consciousness of him who takes upon himself to be the protector and the happiness of a virtuous woman; was he not aware that even this blessed regeneration could not avail him here? He well knew that his father's bigotry would sooner see him die than allow him to perish, soul and body; which he would suppose must be the consequence, should he permit him to marry a daughter of the church of England. To acknowledge his sentiments for Alice to the Marquis, was only to call down his malediction on their object. And, under these circumstances, to reveal more of them to herself, than his surprised heart had already betrayed, seemed to him a base sacrifice to his own immediate gratification, at the expence of his honour and her future comfort. He was not so illread in female character as to be ignorant that he had made an impression on the heart of this artless child of nature. No one present appeared to suspect what was passing in the bosoms of either. Could he then, knowing that the bar was insuperable between him and her, could he act the double treachery of fastening affections, that must be hopeless, upon him; and make so ungrateful a return to the hospitality of her uncle and her mother, as to devote the youth of their beloved child to tears and disappointment? "No," said he to himself, "I will not load my already burdened soul with the guilt of rendering her unhappy; of having come hither on a demon's errand, to lay waste all that paradise of smiles! I deserve to go hence, as I came, a lonely, unregretted wretch."