"I am like one that has long toiled up a dangerous precipice, and when he is within one perilous stride of the top, finds his progress arrested when retreat has become impossible.

I see above me the pinnacle which I cannot reach--beneath me the abyss into which I must fall, as soon as my relaxing grasp and dizzy brain join to hurl me from my present precarious stance." "Think better of your situation, my lord," said Varney; "let us try the experiment in which you have but now acquiesced.

Keep we your marriage from Elizabeth's knowledge, and all may yet be well.

I will instantly go to the lady myself.

She hates me, because I have been earnest with your lordship, as she truly suspects, in opposition to what she terms her rights.