Or, grant I
could stoop to save myself by a hasty submission, am I not, even in that
case, utterly ruined? I have broken irreconcilably with Ratcliffe, and
can have nothing to expect from that quarter but insult and persecution.
I must wander forth an impoverished and dishonoured man, without
even the means of sustaining life, far less wealth sufficient to
counterbalance the infamy which my countrymen, both those whom I
desert and those whom I join, will attach to the name of the political
renegade. It is not to be thought of. And yet, what choice remains
between this lot and the ignominious scaffold? Nothing can save me but
reconciliation with these men; and, to accomplish this, I have promised
to Langley that Isabella shall marry him ere midnight, and to Mareschal,
that she shall do so without compulsion. I have but one remedy betwixt
me and ruin--her consent to take a suitor whom she dislikes, upon such
short notice as would disgust her, even were he a favoured lover--But
I must trust to the romantic generosity of her disposition; and let
me paint the necessity of her obedience ever so strongly, I cannot
overcharge its reality.
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