‘I never will, Mrs Lyddiard,’ cried Amy energetically, rising at the same time from her kneeling position beside the bed of the invalid.  ’I feel myself justified in making this resolution.  I have been an unwilling, nay, I may say an unconscious agent in a scheme of dishonour; but I should be culpable if, by any act of mine, I furthered it, even though the motive should be to save a parent from disgrace and a prison.  Still, my father claims my duteous regard, and so long as my personal exertions and self-denial can afford him aid, I will never desert him.’

‘You have spoken nobly, my dear Amy,’ Mrs Lyddiard exclaimed, her eyes brightening, and her pale cheek flushing with pleasure.  ’Your own upright heart is your best adviser, and Heaven will aid your filial piety.’

As our heroine prudently wished to avoid a meeting with her lover, she left the house earlier than she otherwise would have done, and returned home to prepare her mind for the trial which awaited her.  She resolved to decline the baronet’s suit respectfully, yet firmly, alluding with gratitude to the services he had rendered her father; and she hoped much, notwithstanding the anger he had evinced, from the natural mildness of his character.  She had not, however, been long in her chamber, when she, to her surprise, received another summons from her father, who she had imagined to be from home.  The dark frown which clouded his brow too surely indicated the state of his feelings.  ’You may spare yourself the trouble of refusing Sir Philip Rushwood, Miss Beaufort,’ he sneeringly remarked, as she tremblingly took a seat by his side; ’you will not have the opportunity of displaying your triumph.’

‘What do you mean, papa?’ Amy interrogated, wholly at a loss to understand the import of his words.

’Oh, you are in utter ignorance that your vagabond suitor, Lyddiard, left a billet for you this morning,’ he resumed in the same sarcastic strain; ’and you are quite unconscious that you were carried in a coach to his residence; but the lynx-eye of jealousy watched you, and you have converted a friend into a foe.  It is I, however,’ he fiercely added, ’who must suffer the penalty of your disobedience and duplicity, and either die in a prison, or become an exile from my country.  I prefer the latter, and must leave you to reap the fruits of your own self-will.’

‘Oh, my father!’ Amy almost wildly exclaimed, throwing herself at his feet, ’had you given me time I should have explained everything to you connected with my visit to Mrs Lyddiard; but I entreat you not to add to the dishonour you are already involved in by flight.  Surely the debts you have contracted are not to so large an amount but they may be liquidated in time by our mutual exertions.  Let us descend to the sphere from which we have so lately risen, if by that means we can honourably overcome our difficulties.’

‘Talk not to me in this manner,’ Beaufort angrily interposed:  ’I will not brook the disgrace your obstinacy has brought upon me; and you have yourself alone to blame that you are not the mistress of a princely fortune.  Go to your beggarly lover, if he will receive you when penniless and homeless—­the tie between us is broken,’ And with these words he rose to quit the room.