Juliet here, with dignity, interrupted him, 'My lord, I will not ask who this may be; I even beg not to be told. I can listen to no one! Till the Bishop is released and safe, I hold myself merely to be his hostage; and, till my freedom, atrociously as it has been violated, shall be legally restored to me, I cannot but feel hurt,--for I will not say offended where the intention is so kind, and so pure,--that any proposals of any sort, and from any person, should be addressed to me!' Lord Melbury, prepared for expostulation, was beginning to reply; but she solemnly besought him not to involve her in any new conflicts. She then asked his permission to introduce him to her uncle, Admiral Powel; whom she desired to join upon the beach. No, no; he answered; other business, still more urgent, must have precedence. And, holding both her hands, he insisted upon acquainting, her, that it was Mr Harleigh who had been his informant of her history and situation; and that she was the undoubted and legitimate daughter of Lord Granville; all which he had learnt from Sir Jaspar Herrington. 'And Mr Harleigh has begged my leave,' continued his lordship, smiling, 'though I am not, you may think, perhaps, very old for judging of such matters; to make his addresses to you.--Now don't put yourself into that flutter till you hear how he arranged it; for he knows all your scruples, and reveres them,--or, rather, and reveres you, my sweet sister! for your scruples we both think a little chimerical: don't be angry at that; we honour you all the same for having them: and Mr Harleigh seems to adore you only the more. So, I make no doubt does Aurora. And I, too, my dear sister! only I can't see you sacrificed to them. But Mr Harleigh has found a way to reconcile all perplexities. He will save you, he says, in honour as well as in person; for the wretch shall still have the wife whom he married, if he will restore the Bishop!' 'What can you mean?'-- 'His six thousand pounds, my dear sister! That sum, in full, he shall have; for that, as Harleigh says, is the wife that he married!' Smiles now again, irresistibly, forced their way back to the face of Juliet, as she bowed her full concurrence to this observation. 'Harleigh, therefore,' continued Lord Melbury, 'for this very reason, will go himself to make the arrangement; to the end that, if the wretch refuses to take the six thousand without you, he may offer a thousand, or two, over: for, enraged as he is to enrich such a scoundrel, he would rather endow him with your whole thirty thousand, and, for aught I know, with as much more of his own, than let you fall into his clutches.'