Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 3.djvu/237

 taken. I love her, and have always had the most honourable intentions towards her."

"Yes," said I, with a sarcastic sneer, "at the time that you have been engaged to another woman .for years. To one or the other you must acknowledge yourself a scoundrel: I do not, therefore, withdraw my appellation, but repeat it; and as you seem so very patient under injuries, I inform you that you must either meet me on the sands this evening, or consent to be stigmatized with another name still more revolting to the feelings of an Englishman."

"Enough, enough, Frank," said Talbot, with a face, in which conscious innocence and manly fortitude were blended; " you have said more than I ever expected to have heard from you, and more than the customs of the world will allow me to put up with. What must be, must; but I still tell you, Frank, that you are wrong—that you are fatally deluded, and that you will bitterly repent the follies of this day.