fears—fears that I will express, chafe as you may—fears that you may be consigning that young lady to something worse than supporting you by the labour of her hands, had she worked herself dead. These are my fears, and these fears I found upon your own demeanour. Your conscience will tell you, Sir, whether I construe it well or not."
"For Heaven's sake!" cried Madeline, interposing in alarm between them. "Remember, Sir, he is ill."
"Ill!" cried the invalid, gasping and catching for breath. "Ill! Ill! I am bearded and bullied by a shop-boy, and she beseeches him to pity me and remember I am ill!"
He fell into a paroxysm of his disorder, so violent that for a few moments Nicholas was alarmed for his life; but finding that he began to recover, he withdrew, after signifying by a gesture to the young lady that he had something important to communicate, and would wait for her outside the room. He could hear that the sick man came gradually but slowly to himself, and that without any reference to what had just occurred, as though he had no distinct recollection of it as yet, he requested to be left alone.
"Oh!" thought Nicholas, "that this slender chance might not be lost, and that I might prevail if it were but for one week's time and re-consideration!"
"You are charged with some commission to me, Sir," said Madeline, presenting herself in great agitation. "Do not press it now, I beg and pray you. The day after to-morrow—come here then."
"It will be too late—too late for what I have to say," rejoined Nicholas, "and you will not be here. Oh, Madam, if you have but one thought of him who sent me here, but one last lingering care for your own peace of mind and heart, I do for God's sake urge you to give me a hearing."
She attempted to pass him, but Nicholas gently detained her.
"A hearing," said Nicholas. "I ask you but to hear me—not me alone, but him for whom I speak, who is far away and does not know your danger. In the name of Heaven hear me."
The poor attendant with her eyes swollen and red with weeping stood by, and to her Nicholas appealed in such passionate terms that she opened a side-door, and supporting her mistress into an adjoining room beckoned Nicholas to follow them.
"Leave me, Sir, pray," said the young lady.
"I cannot, will not leave you thus," returned Nicholas. "I have a duty to discharge, and either here or in the room from which we have just now come, at whatever risk or hazard to Mr. Bray, I must beseech you to contemplate again the fearful course to which you have been impelled."
"What course is this you speak of, and impelled by whom, Sir?" demanded the young lady, with an effort to speak proudly.
"I speak of this marriage," returned Nicholas, "of this marriage, fixed for to-morrow by one who never faltered in a bad purpose, or lent his aid to any good design; of this marriage, the history of which
