With a faint shriek Mabel sprung forward, and fell at her father’s feet, clasping his knees with her cold hands, and lifting her despairing eyes to his face.
“Spare, oh! spare me this trial, my father; I will do aught else to please you, but, oh! do not ask me solemnly to confess a faith I have not, or to promise a love that I can never, never give: let me be your own Mabel—let me live with you, and cheer your declining years? I ask no high station, I covet no wealth—only let me be at peace with God, and my own soul! In pity hear me, O father; for her sake, whose name I bear, do not revenge my denial of your wishes on the head of that innocent old man—do not send his gray hairs in sorrow to the grave?”
For a moment, one moment only, the proud heart of the aspiring man was softened, as he called to mind one who had also knelt before him, and implored him to let her once more see her childhood’s friends; but the next, the vision of a coronet over that pale brow, round which the long dark curls were falling, and he coldly said—
“You have but to _choose_. I ask no dreadful sacrifice at your hands: methinks it were to many rather a pleasant prospect to be Duchess D’Alençon, and you will remember your own impressions of him were decidedly agreeable. However, he will be satisfied when you are his, I doubt not; I will leave you to meditate, and remember, in a life of _forty_ years, your father was never known to give up any thing on which his will was fixed.”
Mabel said no more; on that sweet face had fallen the deadness of despair, no sound escaped from her lips, her eyes wandered vacantly round as if her mind had failed under the pressure of some great calamity—but she was not forsaken in that dark hour by Him to whom she had solemnly given her service. Although the terrible thought that she should send forth her beloved and venerable father to destitution and want was ever in her mind, and—added to it—the remembrance that Walter, too, would be left desolate, even were he suffered to retain the curacy, which, in itself, was very improbable; yet the words of Mr. Dacre were with her—“My child, never give up your faith, let no threats induce you; and then, above even this, the words of Christ, ‘whoso loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me.’”