"Lady, you are severe; but it becomes not your present position to bandy words with your--" "Oppressor," supplied Ellen, finishing his sentence. "And are you sunk so low, Edward L'Estrange, as to be the oppressor of her you once said you loved? Have I lived to see one I ever thought worthy of the name of Briton stoop to be a woman's oppressor? You are under a cloud; you are not yourself; you have been led away by wicked men! Show yourself what once you were,--too high, too proud to crush one whom those bolder in guilt and vice have hunted down; in your very sins be a man, and not a base tool!" "Oh! do not speak thus! you will kill me! Hear me, Ellen! Love me once more. It is my passion for you led me to do all this. Only say you will love me, and remember all this as a dream--as a horrid dream." "Whatever I might once have done, your conduct has totally broken the last bond even of friendship. Love you, Edward L'Estrange? You cannot know what love is. It is a passion, in pureness and height as far above your base ideas as the frame you bear, but disgrace by your deeds, is above the meaner brutes, whose passions you seem to emulate. I may forgive you if you will restore me to my home and those I love; I may hold you guiltless of this abduction and insult; but love you--oh, _never!_ how could you even dream of it?" "You forget, proud maiden, where, and in whose hands you are; last time it was in your power to crush me, and you used it; this time you are my captive, and I will make my own terms. Terms, said I? I will not even make terms. You are mine. You are in my power. You shall--you must--be my wife." "Edward L'Estrange, by all the memory of better days, I beseech you pause ere you do this dastard action! I will not think so darkly of you as to suppose you are capable of doing what you threaten. I throw myself on your honour. If there is one spark remaining in your breast,--if all that is good, all that is brave, all that is virtuous has not wholly died away,--if there is only a glimmer lingering after all that, like the sun, has set,--wrong me not! There is no glory in overpowering a weak woman; there is nothing brave, nothing soldierly in it; it is but a mean action to overcome those who are weaker. Man was formed to protect woman, not to injure her. Oh! be yourself again. I appeal to your honour! Oh! hear me!" "My honour is gone; I am void of all that is good; in one only thing I am still human,--in love to thee!" "Degenerate man! and can you speak your shame? Have you nothing left? Oh! your words belie your heart; it is not so black as you have painted it. Throw down the idol that has usurped its throne; root out the weeds that rankle there,--burn out the plague spot!"