Crime & punishment > Peveril of the Peak > Volume 2

1
PKVERIL OF THE PEAK. 87
you bid me go, ami yet own an interest in my
fate? — Can you bid me, for fear of dangers,
which, as a man, as a gentleman, and a loyal
one, I am bound to shew my face to, meanly
abandon my parents, my friends, my country—
suffer the existence of evils which I might aid
to prevent, forego the prospect of doing such
little good as might be in my power—fall from
an active and honourable station, into the condi¬
tion of a fugitive and time-server—Can you bid
S me to all this, Alice*? Can you bid me do all
this, and, in the same breath bid farewell for
; ever to you and happiness? — It is impossible—
I cannot surrender at once my love and my ho-
ji nour.”
“There is no remedy,” said Alice, but she
could not suppress a sigh while she said so—
“there is no remedy—none whatever. What
we might have been to each other, placed in
more favourable circumstances, it avails not to
il think of now; and, circumstanced as we are,
with open war about to break out betwixt our
parents and friends, we can be but well-wishers
—cold and distant well-wishers, who must part
; on this spot, and at this hour, never to meet
( again.”
“No, by Heaven I*’ said Peveril, animated
( at the same time by his own feelings, and by
f the sight of the emotions which his companion
in vain endeavoured to suppress, — “No, by
Heaven!” he exclaimed, “we part not—Alice,