She panted for breath.
"Rely on me," said Pembroke, pitying her embarrassment, whilst he
dreaded that her gentle heart had indeed become the victim of some
accomplished and insidious foreigner--"rely on me, my beloved cousin:
consider me as a brother. If you have entangled yourself--"
Miss Beaufort guessed what he would say, and interrupting him, added,
with a more assured air, "No, Pembroke, I have no entanglements. I am
going to ask your friendly assistance on behalf of a brave and
unfortunate Polander." Pembroke reddened and she went on. "Mr.
Constantine is a gentleman. Lady Tinemouth tells me he has been a
soldier, and that he lost all his possessions in the ruin of his
country. Her ladyship introduced him here. I have seen him often, and
I know him to be worthy the esteem of every honorable heart. He is
now in prison, in Newgate, for a debt of about thirty pounds, and I
ask you to go and release him. That is my request--my secret; and I
confide in your discretion that you will keep it even from him."
"Generous, beloved Mary!" cried Pembroke, pressing her hand; "it is
thus you always act. Possessed of all the softness of thy sex,
dearest girl," added he, still more affectionately, "nature has not
alloyed it with one particle of weakness!"
Miss Beaufort smiled and sighed. If to love tenderly, to be devoted
life and soul to one being, whom she considered as the most perfect
work of creation, be weakness, Mary was the weakest of the weak; and
with a languid despondence at her heart, she was opening her lips to
give some directions to her cousin, when the attention of both was
arrested by a shrill noise of speakers talking above stairs.
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