With his two hands leaning on the table, he looked across at me, in a stooping attitude; he had not seated himself. I continued silent until it should be his pleasure to question or address me. At last he said, raising himself and looking upward, with a wild adoration--his finger-tips elevated and glimmering in the faint mixed light-- 'No, I thank my Creator, I am not quite forsaken.' Another silence, during which he looked steadfastly at me, and muttered, as if thinking aloud-- 'My guardian angel!--my guardian angel! Maud, _you_ have a heart.' He addressed me suddenly--'Listen, for a few moments, to the appeal of an old and broken-hearted man--your guardian--your uncle--your _suppliant_. I had resolved never to speak to you more on this subject. But I was wrong. It was pride that inspired me--mere pride.' I felt myself growing pale and flushed by turns during the pause that followed. 'I'm very miserable--very nearly desperate. What remains for me--what remains? Fortune has done her worst--thrown in the dust, her wheels rolled over me; and the servile world, who follow her chariot like a mob, stamp upon the mangled wretch. All this had passed over me, and left me scarred and bloodless in this solitude. It was not my fault, Maud--I say it was no fault of mine; I have no remorse, though more regrets than I can count, and all scored with fire. As people passed by Bartram, and looked upon its neglected grounds and smokeless chimneys, they thought my plight, I dare say, about the worst a proud man could be reduced to. They could not imagine one half its misery. But this old hectic--this old epileptic--this old spectre of wrongs, calamities, and follies, had still one hope--my manly though untutored son--the last male scion of the Ruthyns. Maud, have I lost him? His fate--my fate--I may say _Milly's fate_;--we all await your sentence. He loves you, as none but the very young can love, and that once only in a life. He loves you desperately--a most affectionate nature--a Ruthyn, the best blood in England--the last man of the race; and I--if I lose him I lose all; and you will see me in my coffin, Maud, before many months. I stand before you in the attitude of a suppliant--shall I kneel?' His eyes were fixed on me with the light of despair, his knotted hands clasped, his whole figure bowed toward me. I was inexpressibly shocked and pained. 'Oh, uncle! uncle!' I cried, and from very excitement I burst into tears. I saw that his eyes were fixed on me with a dismal scrutiny. I think he divined the nature of my agitation; but he determined, notwithstanding, to press me while my helpless agitation continued. 'You see my suspense--you see my miserable and frightful suspense. You are kind, Maud; you love your father's memory; your pity your father's brother; you would not say no, and place a pistol at his head?'