"Only let me confide in papa and mamma, let me try and convince them they are mistaken, and Percy too must be in error." The Viscount for some little time endeavoured mildly to confute her arguments, and convince her that in doing so, she was only forming her own misery; but still she pleaded, and ungoverned fury at length burst forth.

He had been too long the victim of passions always to keep them in bounds, even when most required; and for a few minutes they spurned restraint, and Caroline beheld him as he was, and saw in dim perspective the blackened future.

She would have broken from him, but he detained her, and with a rapid transition of mood humbled himself before her, and with impassioned fervour and deep contrition besought her forgiveness, her pity.

It was his fervid love, his fear of losing her, that bade him thus forget himself, and he conjured her not to condemn him to everlasting misery; that he was wretched enough already at having caused her one moment's pain.

He spoke, and his softened voice, his imploring eyes, his protestations of unalterable love and gratitude, if she would but trust to his affections, and be his own as he proposed, had in a degree their effect.