"
"O, no! no!" she answered, abhorrently yet hastily, as if to reject
the temptation which the alternative presented to her. "But is there no
other hope--through flight--through mediation--through supplication?--I
will bend my knee to Sir Frederick!"
"It would be a fruitless degradation; he is determined on his course,
and I am equally resolved to stand the hazard of my fate. On one
condition only he will turn aside from his purpose, and that condition
my lips shall never utter to you."
"Name it, I conjure you, my dear father!" exclaimed Isabella. "What CAN
he ask that we ought not to grant, to prevent the hideous catastrophe
with which you are threatened?"
"That, Isabella," said Vere, solemnly, "you shall never know, until your
father's head has rolled on the bloody scaffold; then, indeed, you will
learn there was one sacrifice by which he might have been saved."
"And why not speak it now?" said Isabella; "do you fear I would flinch
from the sacrifice of fortune for your preservation? or would you
bequeath me the bitter legacy of life-long remorse, so oft as I shall
think that you perished, while there remained one mode of preventing the
dreadful misfortune that overhangs you?"
"Then, my child," said Vere, "since you press me to name what I would a
thousand times rather leave in silence, I must inform you that he will
accept for ransom nothing but your hand in marriage, and that conferred
before midnight this very evening!"
"This evening, sir?" said the young lady, struck with horror at the
proposal--"and to such a man!--A man?--a monster, who could wish to win
the daughter by threatening the life of the father--it is impossible!"
"You say right, my child," answered her father, "it is indeed
impossible; nor have I either the right or the wish to exact such a
sacrifice--It is the course of nature that the old should die and be
forgot, and the young should live and be happy.
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