have I done, that I should deserve to have you for an enemy?"

"I am not your enemy. I tell you that it is necessary to put you out of
harm's way. But, if I were your enemy, I could not be a worse torment to
you than you are to me. Are not you continually singing the praises of
Falkland? Are not you in love with Falkland? That man is a legion of
devils to me! I might as well have been a beggar! I might as well have
been a dwarf or a monster! Time was when I was thought entitled to
respect. But now, debauched by this Frenchified rascal, they call me
rude, surly, a tyrant! It is true that I cannot talk in finical phrases,
flatter people with hypocritical praise, or suppress the real feelings
of my mind. The scoundrel knows his pitiful advantages, and insults me
upon them without ceasing. He is my rival and my persecutor; and, at
last, as if all this were not enough, he has found means to spread the
pestilence in my own family. You, whom we took up out of charity, the
chance-born brat of a stolen marriage! you must turn upon your
benefactor, and wound me in the point that of all others I could least
bear. If I were your enemy, should not I have reason? Could I ever
inflict upon you such injuries as you have made me suffer? And who are
you? The lives of fifty such cannot atone for an hour of my uneasiness.
If you were to linger for twenty years upon the rack, you would never
feel what I have felt. But I am your friend. I see which way you are
going; and I am determined to save you from this thief, this
hypocritical destroyer of us all. Every moment that the mischief is left
to itself, it does but make bad worse; and I am determined to save you
out of hand."

The angry expostulations of Mr. Tyrrel suggested new ideas to the tender
mind of Miss Melville. He had never confessed the emotions of his soul
so explicitly before; but the tempest of his thoughts suffered him to be