Chapter 14 - Page 2

that, if he failed, he himself
was a lost man, were quite sufficient to drown all scruples.

He found Miss Vere seated by the window of her dressing-room, her head
reclining on her hand, and either sunk in slumber, or so deeply engaged
in meditation, that she did not hear the noise he made at his entrance.
He approached with his features composed to a deep expression of sorrow
and sympathy, and, sitting down beside her, solicited her attention by
quietly taking her hand, a motion which he did not fail to accompany
with a deep sigh.

"My father!" said Isabella, with a sort of start, which expressed at
least as much fear, as joy or affection.

"Yes, Isabella," said Vere, "your unhappy father, who comes now as a
penitent to crave forgiveness of his daughter for an injury done to her
in the excess of his affection, and then to take leave of her for ever."

"Sir? Offence to me take leave for ever? What does all this mean?" said
Miss Vere.

"Yes, Isabella, I am serious. But first let me ask you, have you no
suspicion that I may have been privy to the strange chance which befell
you yesterday morning?"

"You, sir?" answered Isabella, stammering between a consciousness that
he had guessed her thoughts justly, and the shame as well as fear which
forbade her to acknowledge a suspicion so degrading and so unnatural.

"Yes!" he continued, "your hesitation confesses that you entertained
such an opinion, and I have now the painful task of acknowledging that
your suspicions have done me no injustice. But listen to my motives.
In an evil hour I countenanced the addresses of Sir Frederick Langley,
conceiving it impossible that you could have any permanent objections to
a match where the advantages were, in most respects, on your side. In
a worse, I entered with him into measures calculated to restore our
banished monarch, and the independence of my country. He has taken
advantage of my unguarded confidence, and now has my life at his
disposal."

"Your life, sir?" said Isabella, faintly.

"Yes, Isabella," continued her father, "the life of him who gave life to
you. So soon as I foresaw the excesses into which his headlong passion
(for, to do him justice, I believe his unreasonable conduct arises from
excess of attachment to you) was likely to hurry him, I endeavoured,
by finding a plausible pretext for your absence for some weeks, to
extricate myself from the dilemma in which I am placed. For this purpose
I wished, in case your objections to the match continued insurmountable,
to have sent you privately for a few months to the convent of your
maternal aunt at Paris. By a series of