"
"Thank you. I have but one additional solicitation to make, and if to this
you can give your assent, I shall be truly happy, delighted, and
confident."
All this time he had been driving at one point, which he had now reached,
but was slow to present. A momentary pause ensued; Ellen was in doubt as to
the nature of the requirement, and he of the propriety of making it. But he
had set his all upon the desperate stake for which he was playing, and it
would not now do to leave the game. He at length went on:
"I shall not feel myself safe in society unless I can form an alliance with
some family of note and respectability. I am not as extensively acquainted
as some others--in a word, I know of no young lady but yourself to whom I
can offer my hand, and having loved you so long and ardently, I can do
nothing less than make this as my final request, _that you consent to
become my wife_. I make this request the only condition of release, and
upon your acceptance of my hand depends my present and future hope, my
salvation in time and eternity. My fate is in your hands, and you can raise
me to heaven, or cast me down to hell. Will you save me?"
It would be quite impossible to depict the consternation this announcement
created in the mind of Ellen. In spite of her better judgment, and the
precedents in the villain's former life, she had suffered herself to be
beguiled by his seeming sincerity of manner into the hope that he was
really desirous of reforming; and even now she could hardly believe her own
ears, so consummate was his hypocrisy; but as the whole truth shone out to
her comprehension, she saw through his scheme at once--that all his seeming
repentance was a pretense as hollow as his own heart.
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