“Perhaps, my lord, you attribute to me other feelings and greater presumption than I have in reality been actuated by.  Will you allow me, before you utterly condemn me—­will you allow me, I say, not to point out any cause why you should have seen, or known, or countenanced my attachment to your daughter, but merely to recall to your remembrance the circumstances in which I have been placed, and in which it was scarcely possible for me to resist those feelings of love and attachment which I will not attempt to disown, which I never will cast off, and which I will retain and cherish to the last hour of my life, whatever may be your grace’s ultimate decision, whatever may be my fate, fortune, happiness, or misery, in other respects?”

The Duke was better pleased with Wilton’s tone, and, to say the truth, though his resolution was in no degree shaken, yet the anger which he had called up, in order to drown every word of opposition, had by this time nearly exhausted itself.

“My ultimate decision!” said the Duke; “sir, there is no decision to be made:  the matter is decided.—­But go on, sir, go on—­I am perfectly willing to hear.  I am not so unreasonable as not to hear anything that you may wish to say, without giving you the slightest hope that I may be shaken by words:  which cannot be.  What is it you wish to say?”

“Merely this, your grace,” replied Wilton.  “The first time I had the honour of meeting your grace, I rendered yourself, and more particularly the Lady Laura, a slight service, a very slight one, it is true, but yet sufficient to make you think, yourself, that I was entitled to claim your after-acquaintance, and to justify your reproach for not coming to your box at the theatre.  You must admit then, certainly, that I did not press myself into the society of the Lady Laura.”

“Oh, certainly not, certainly not,” replied the Duke—­“I never accused you of that, sir.  Your conduct, your external demeanour, has always been most correct.  It is not of any presumption of manners that I accuse you.”

“Well, my lord,” continued Wilton, “it so happened that an accidental circumstance, not worth noticing now, induced your lordship to place much confidence in me, and to render me a familiar visitor at your house.  You on one occasion called me to your daughter your best friend, and I was more than once left in Lady Laura’s society for a considerable period alone.  Now, my lord, none can know better than yourself the charms of that society, or how much it is calculated to win and engage the heart of any one whose bosom was totally free, and had never beheld before a woman equal in the slightest degree to his ideas of perfection.  I will confess, my lord, that I struggled very hard against the feelings which I found growing up in my own bosom.  At that time I struggled the more and with the firmer determination, because I had always entertained an erroneous impression with regard to my own birth, an impression which, had it continued, would have prevented my dreaming it possible that Lady Laura could ever be mine—­”