Her unexpected appearance yesterday has revived my
passion with triple fervour. I have passed a sleepless night, and rise
with the determination to obtain her.'
'You know your own power, Lucius, better perhaps than I do, or the
world. We rank it high; none higher; yet, nevertheless, I look upon this
declaration as insanity.'
He raised her hand to his lips, and pressed it with delicate warmth, and
summoned his most insinuating tone. 'With your aid, Bertha, I should not
despair!'
'Lucy, I am your friend; perhaps your best friend: but these Dacres!
Would it were anyone but a Dacre! No, no, this cannot be.'
'Bertha, you know me better than the world: I am a roue, and you are
my friend; but, believe me, I am not quite so vain as to indulge for
a moment in the idea that May Dacre should be aught to me but what all
might approve and all might honour. Yes, I intend her for my wife.'
'Your wife! You are, indeed, premature.'
'Not quite so premature as you perhaps imagine. Know, then, that the
great point is on the eve of achievement. Urged by the information which
Afy thinks she unconsciously obtains from Lachen, and harrowed by the
idea that I am about to tear her from England, she has appealed to the
Duke in a manner to which they were both unused.
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