'
'Miss Dacre!'
'You are moved, or you affect to be moved. 'Tis well: if a word from a
stranger can thus affect you, you may be better able to comprehend the
feelings of that person whose affections you have so long outraged; your
equal in blood, Duke of St. James, your superior in all other respects.'
'Beautiful being!' said his Grace, advancing, falling on his knee, and
seizing her hand. 'Pardon, pardon, pardon! Like your admirable sire,
forgive; cast into oblivion all remembrance of my fatal youth. Is not
your anger, is not this moment, a bitter, an utter expiation for all
my folly, all my thoughtless, all my inexperienced folly; for it was
no worse? On my knees, and in the face of Heaven, let me pray you to be
mine. I have staked my happiness upon this venture. In your power is my
fate. On you it depends whether I shall discharge my duty to society,
to the country to which I owe so much, or whether I shall move in it
without an aim, an object, or a hope. Think, think only of the sympathy
of our dispositions; the similarity of our tastes. Think, think only of
the felicity that might be ours.
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