My lord, the highest instance of a great and noble mind is to perform a generous act; and when you hear from my own lips the circumstances which I am about to state, I would hope to find you capable of such an act.  I am now appealing to your generosity—­your disinterestedness—­your magnanimity (and you ought to be proud to possess these virtues)—­to all those principles that honor and dignify our nature, and render man a great example to his kind.  My lord, I am very unhappy—­I am miserable—­I am wretched; so completely borne down by suffering that life is only a burden, which I will not be able long to bear; and you, my lord, are the cause of all this anguish and agony.”

“Upon my honor, Miss Gourlay, I am very much concerned to hear it.  I would rather the case were otherwise, I assure you.  Anything that I can do, I needn’t say, I shall be most happy to do; but proceed, pray.”

“My lord, I throw myself upon your generosity; do you possess it?  Upon your feeling as a man, upon your honor as a gentleman.  I implore, I entreat you, not to press this unhappy engagement.  I implore you for my sake, for the sake of humanity, for the sake of God; and if that will not weigh with you, then I ask it for the sake of your own honor, which will be tarnished by pressing it on.  I have already said that you possess not my affections, and that to a man of honor and spirit ought to be sufficient; but I will go farther, and say, that if there be one man living against a union with whom I entertain a stronger and more unconquerable aversion than another, you are that man.”

“But you know, Miss Gourlay, if I may interrupt you for a moment, that that fact completely falls into my principles.  There is only one other circumstance wanting to make the thing complete; but perhaps you will come to it; at least I hope so.  Pray, proceed, madam; I am all attention.”

“Yes,” she replied, “I shall proceed; because I would not that my conscience should hereafter reproach me for having left anything undone to escape this misery.  My lord, I implore you to spare me; force me not over the brow of this dreadful precipice; have compassion on me—­have generosity—­act with honor.”

“I would crown you with honor, if I could, Miss Gourlay.”

“You are about to crown me with fire, my lord; to wring my spirit with torture; to drive me into distraction—­despair—­madness.  But you will not do so.  You know that I cannot love you.  I am not to blame for this; our affections are not always under our own control.  Have pity on me, then, Lord Dunroe.  Go to my father, and tell him that you will not be a consenting party to my misery—­and accessory to my death.  Say what is true; that as I neither do nor can love you, the honor of a gentleman, and the spirit of a man, equally forbid you to act ungenerously to me and dishonorably to yourself.  What man, not base and mean, and sunk farther down in degradation of spirit than contempt could reach him, would for a moment think of marrying a woman who, like me, can neither love nor honor him?  Go, my lord; see my father; tell him you are a man—­an Irish gentleman—­”