catch not from their parents only, but from those they most see, and,
loving most, most imitate in their tender years,--all these, I say, made
perhaps a chief attraction, that drew me towards--Alice, are you prepared
for it?--drew me towards Evelyn Cameron. Know me in my real character,
by my true name: I am that Maltravers to whom the hand of Evelyn was a
few weeks ago betrothed!"

* See "Ernest Maltravers," book v., p. 228.

He paused, and ventured to look up at Alice; she was exceedingly pale,
and her hands were tightly clasped together, but she neither wept nor
spoke. The worst was over; he continued more rapidly, and with less
constrained an effort: "By the art, the duplicity, the falsehood of Lord
Vargrave, I was taught in a sudden hour to believe that Evelyn was our
daughter, that you recoiled from the prospect of beholding once more the
author of so many miseries. I need not tell you, Alice, of the horror
that succeeded to love. I pass over the tortures I endured. By a train
of incidents to be related to you hereafter, I was led to suspect the
truth of Vargrave's tale. I came hither; I have learned all from Aubrey.
I regret no more the falsehood that so racked me for the time; I regret
no more the rupture of my bond with Evelyn; I regret nothing that brings
me at last free and unshackled to thy feet, and acquaints me with thy
sublime faith and ineffable love. Here then--here beneath your own
roof--here he, at once your earliest friend and foe, kneels to you for
pardon and for hope! He woos you as his wife, his companion to the
grave! Forget all his errors, and be to him, under a holier name, all
that you were to him of old!"

"And you are then Evelyn's suitor,--you are he whom she loves? I see it
all--all!" Alice rose, and, before he was even aware of her purpose, or