_Miss Susannah_.—The world and my name are not friends. I have left the world, and wish to remain for ever a stranger to all whom I once knew in it.
_Mr. Chainmail_.—You can have done nothing to dishonour your name.
_Miss Susannah_.—No, sir. My father has done that of which the world disapproves, in matters of which I pretend not to judge. I have suffered for it as I will never suffer again. My name is my own secret: I have no other, and that is one not worth knowing. You see what I am, and all I am. I live according to the condition of my present fortune, and here, so living, I have found tranquillity.
_Mr. Chainmail_.—Yet, I entreat you, tell me your name.
_Mr. Chainmail_.—Why, but to throw my hand, my heart, my fortune, at your feet, if—.
_Miss Susannah_.—If my name be worthy of them.
_Mr. Chainmail_.—Nay, nay, not so; if your hand and heart are free.
_Miss Susannah_.—My hand and heart are free; but they must be sought from myself, and not from my name.
She fixed her eyes on him, with a mingled expression of mistrust, of kindness, and of fixed resolution, which the far-gone _inamorato_ found irresistible.
_Mr. Chainmail_.—Then from yourself alone I seek them.
_Miss Susannah_.—Reflect. You have prejudices on the score of parentage. I have not conversed with you so often without knowing what they are. Choose between them and me. I too have my own prejudices on the score of personal pride.
_Mr. Chainmail_.—I would choose you from all the world, were you even the daughter of the _exécuteur des hautes œuvres_, as the heroine of a romantic story I once read turned out to be.
_Miss Susannah_.—I am satisfied. You have now a right to know my history, and if you repent, I absolve you from all obligations.
She told him her history; but he was out of the reach of repentance. “It is true,” as at a subsequent period he said to the captain, “she is the daughter of a money-changer: one who, in the days of Richard the First, would have been plucked by the beard in the streets: but she is, according to modern notions, a lady of gentle blood. As to her father’s running away, that is a minor consideration: I have always understood, from Mr. Mac Quedy, who is a great oracle in this way, that promises to pay ought not to be kept; the essence of a safe and economical currency being an interminable series of broken promises. There seems to be a difference among the learned as to the way in which the promises ought to be broken; but I am not deep enough in this casuistry to enter into such nice distinctions.”