el Grouse _and_ Fanny.

_Ab. Gr._ Don't tell me of your sorrow and repentance girl. You've
broke my heart. Married hey? and privately too--and to a lord into the
bargain! So, when you can hide it no longer, you condescend to tell me.
Think you that the wealth and title of lord Austencourt can silence the
fears of a fond father's heart? Why should a lord marry a poor girl like
you in private, if his intentions were honourable? Who should restrain
him from publicly avowing his wife?

_Fanny._ My dearest father, have but a little patience, and I'll explain
all.

_Ab. Gr._ Who was present, besides the parson, at your wedding?

_Fanny._ There was our neighbour, the attorney, sir, and one of his
clerks, and they were all--

_Ab. Gr._ My heart sinks within me--but mark me. You may remember I was
not always what now I seem to be. I yesterday received intelligence
which, but for this discovery, had shed a gleam of joy over my remaining
days. As it is, should your husband prove the villain I suspect him,
that intelligence will afford me an opportunity to resume a character in
life which shall make this monster lord tremble. The wrongs of Abel
Grouse, the poor but upright man, might have been pleaded in vain to
him, but as I shall soon appear, it shall go hard but I will make the
great man shrink before me, even in his plenitude of pride and power.

_Fanny._ You terrify me, sir, indeed you do.

_Ab. Gr._ And so I would. I would prepare you for the worst that may
befal us: for should this man, this lord, who calls himself your
husband--

_Fanny._ Dearest father, what can you mean? Who _calls_ himself my
husband! He _is_ my husband.

_Ab. Gr._ If he _is_ your husband, how does he dare to pay his
addresses, as he now publicly does, to the daughter of sir Willoughby
Worret, our neighbour. I may be mistaken. I'm in the midst here of old
acquaintances, though in this guise they know me not. They shall soon
see me amongst them. Not a word of this, I charge you. Come girl, this
lord shall own you. If he does not, we will seek a remedy in those laws
which are at once the best guardians of our rights and the surest
avengers of our wrongs. [_Exeunt._

SCENE II.--_A parlour in_ sir W. Worret's _house. The breakfast
prepared, urn, &c._ Sir Willoughby _reading the newspaper. He rises and
rings the bell; then pulls out his watch._

_Sir W._ Three quarters of an hour since breakfast was first announced
to my wife. My patience is e