dreadful evidence against you! 'Tis Heaven itself! 'tis there your vows
were heard! 'tis there where Truth resides, your vows are registered!
then oh! reflect before you plunge too deep in guilt for repentance and
retreat! reflect that we are married!

_Lord A._ I cannot speak at present; leave me, and we will meet again.

_Fanny._ Do not command me from you; I see your heart is softened by my
tears; cherish the stranger Pity in your breast; 'tis noble, excellent!
Such pity in itself is virtue! Oh, cherish it, my lord! nor let the
selfish feelings of the world step in to smother it! Now! now, while it
glows unstifled in your heart! now, ere it dies, to be revived no more,
at once proclaim the triumph of your virtue, and receive into your arms
a fond and an acknowledged wife!

_Lord A._ Ha! impossible! Urge me no more! I cannot, will not hear
you--My heart has ever been your own, my _hand must_ be another's; still
we may love each other; still we may sometimes meet.

_Fanny_ (_after a struggle._) I understand you! No, sir! Since it must
be, we will meet no more! I know that there are laws; but to these laws
I disdain to fly! Mine is an injury that cannot be redressed; for the
only mortal witnesses to our union you have suborned: the laws,
therefore, cannot do me justice, and I will never, inhuman as you are, I
will never seek them for revenge. [_Exit._

_O'Ded_ (_aside._) I'm thinking, that if I was a lord, I should act in a
clean _contrary_ way; by the powers now, that man has got what I call a
tough constitution; his heart's made of stone like a brick wall--Oh!
that a man should have the power of a man, and not know how to behave
like a man!

_Lord A._ What's to be done? speak, advise me!

_O'Ded._ That's it: have you made up your mind already, that you ask me
to advise you?

_Lord A._ I know not how to act.

_O'Ded._ When a man's in doubt whether he should act as an honest man or
a rogue, there are two or three small reasons for choosing the right
side.

_Lord A._ What is't you mean, sir?

_O'Ded._ I mean this thing--that as I suppose you're in doubt whether to
persecute the poor souls, or to marry the sweet girl in right earnest.

_Lord A._ Marry her! I have no such thoughts--idiot!

_O'Ded._ Idiot! That's no proof of your lordship's wisdom to come and
ask advice of one.--Idiot, by St. Patrick! an idiot's a fool, and that's
a Christian name was never sprinkled upon Cornelius O'Dedimus, attorney
at la