made, I shall not hesitate to proffer a request to you.’  ‘Ask what you will; if I have it to give, it shall be yours,’ he replied.  ‘You make that promise solemnly, and before heaven?’ I said.  ‘I make it solemnly,’ he replied.  ’And to prove to you that I mean it to be binding upon me, I will confirm it by an oath upon the Bible.’  And as he spoke he took the sacred volume from his doublet, and reverently kissed it.  Then I said to him—­’Sir, you have told me you have a daughter, but you have not told me whether she is marriageable or not?’ He started at the question, and answered somewhat sternly.  ’My daughter has arrived at womanhood.  But wherefore the inquiry?  Do you seek her hand in marriage?’ ‘If I did so, would you refuse her to me?’ A pause ensued, during which I observed he was struggling with deep emotion, but he replied at last, ’I could not do so after my solemn promise to you; but I pray you not to make the demand.’  I then said to him:  ’Sir, you cannot lay any restrictions upon me.  I shall exact fulfilment of your promise.  Your daughter must be mine.’  Again he seemed to be torn by emotion, and to meditate a refusal; but after a while he suppressed his feelings, and replied.  ’My word is plighted.  She shall be yours.—­Ay, though it cost me my life, she shall be yours.’  He then inquired my name and station, and I gave him a different name from that by which I am known; in fact, I adopted one which chanced to be familiar to him, and which instantly changed his feelings towards me into those of warmest friendship.  As you may well suppose, I did not think fit to reveal my odious profession, and though I was unmasked, I contrived so to muffle my hateful visage with my cloak, that it was in a great degree concealed from him.  After this, I told him that I had no intention of pressing my demand immediately; that I would take my own means of seeing his daughter without her being conscious of my presence; and that I would not intrude upon her in any way without his sanction.  I used some other arguments, which seemed perfectly to satisfy him, and we separated, he having previously acquainted me that he lived at Tottenham.  Not many days elapsed before I found an opportunity of viewing his daughter, and I found her exquisitely beautiful.  I had indeed gained a prize; and I resolved that no entreaties on his part, or on hers, should induce me to abandon my claim.  I took care not to be seen by her, being sensible that any impression I might make would be prejudicial to me; and I subsequently learnt from her father that he had not disclosed to her the promise he had been rash enough to make to me.  I had an interview with him—­the third and last that ever took place between us—­on the morning of the day on which he made an attempt upon the life of the King.  I rode over to Tottenham, and arrived there before daybreak.  My coming was expected, and he himself admitted me by a private door into his garden, and thence into the house.  I perceived that his