ensues, it will not be between father and son, and--"

Fanny sprang forward. "Do not provoke this bad, dangerous man! I fear
him not. Sir, I will hear you, and alone."

"Never!" cried I and Roland simultaneously.

Vivian turned his look fiercely to me, and with a sullen bitterness to
his father; and then, as if resigning his former prayer, he said: "Well,
then, be it so; even in the presence of those who judge me so severely,
I will speak at least." He paused, and throwing into his voice a
passion that, had the repugnance at his guilt been less, would not have
been without pathos, he continued to address Fanny: "I own that when I
first saw you I might have thought of love as the poor and ambitious
think of the way to wealth and power. Those thoughts vanished, and
nothing remained in my heart but love and madness. I was as a man in a
delirium when I planned this snare. I knew but one object, saw but one
heavenly vision. Oh! mine--mine at least in that vision--are you indeed
lost to me forever?"

There was that in this man's tone and manner which, whether arising from
accomplished hypocrisy or actual, if perverted, feeling, would, I
thought, find its way at once to the heart of a woman who, however
wronged, had once loved him; and with a cold misgiving, I fixed my eyes
on Miss Trevanion. Her look, as she turned with a visible tremor,
suddenly met mine, and I believe that she discerned my doubt; for after
suffering her eyes to rest on my own with something of mournful
reproach, her lips curved as with the pride, of her mother, and for the
first time in my life I saw anger on her brow.