Tell me not of to-morrow. If indeed you mean me honourably, now, this
very instant NOW! you must show it, and be gone! you can never in a whole
long life repair the evils you NOW make me suffer!
Wicked wretch!--Insolent villain!--yes, she called me insolent villain,
although so much in my power! And for what!--only for kissing (with
passion indeed) her inimitable neck, her lips, her cheeks, her forehead,
and her streaming eyes, as this assemblage of beauties offered itself at
once to my ravished sight; she continuing kneeling at my feet as I sat.
If I am a villain, Madam!--And then my grasping, but trembling hand--I
hope I did not hurt the tenderest and loveliest of all her beauties--If I
am a villain, Madam--
She tore my ruffle, shrunk from my happy hand, with amazing force and
agility, as with my other arm I would have encircled her waist.
Indeed you are!--the worst of villains!--Help! dear, blessed people! and
screamed out--No help for a poor creature!
Am I then a villain, Madam?--Am I then a villain, say you?--and clasped
both my arms about her, offering to raise her to my bounding heart.
Oh! no!--And yet you are!--And again I was her dear Lovelace!--her hands
again clasped over her charming bosom:--Kill me! kill me!--if I am odious
enough in your eyes to deserve this treatment: and I will thank you!--Too
long, much too long has my life been a burden to me!--Or, (wildly looking
all round her,) give me but the means, and I will instantly convince you
that my honour is dearer to me than my life!
Then, with still folded hands, and fresh streaming eyes, I was her
blessed Lovelace; and she would thank me with her latest breath if I
would permit her to make that preference, or free her from farther
indignities.
I sat suspended for a moment: by my soul, thought I, thou art, upon full
proof, an angel and no woman! still, however, close clasping her to my
bosom, as I raised her from her knees, she again slid through my arms,
and dropped upon them.--'See, Mr. Lovelace!--Good God! that I should live
to see this hour, and to bear this treatment!--See at your feet a poor
creature, imploring your pity; who, for your sake, is abandoned of all
the world. Let not my father's curse thus dreadfully operate! be not you
the inflicter, who have been the cause of it: but spare me, I beseech
you, spare me!--for how have I deserved this treatment from you? for your
own sake, if not for my sake, and as you would that God Almighty, in your
last hour, should have mercy upon you, spare me!'
What heart but must have been penetrated!
I would again have raised the dear suppliant from her knees; but she
would not be raised, till my softened mind, she said, had yielded to her
prayer, and bid her rise to be innocent.
Rise then, my angel! rise, and be what you are, and all you wish to be!
only pronounce me pardoned for what has passed, and tell me you will
continue to look upon me with that eye of favour and serenity which I
have been blessed with for some days past, and I will submit to my
beloved conqueress, whose power never was at so great an height with me,
as now, and retire to my apartment.
God Almighty, said she, hear your prayers in your most arduous moments,
as you have heard mine! and now leave me, this moment leave me, to my own
recollection: in that you will leave me to misery enough, and more than
you ought to wish to your bitterest enemy.
Impute not every thing, my best beloved, to design, for design it was
not--
O Mr. Lovelace!
Upon my soul, Madam, the fire was real--[and so it was, Jack!]--The
house, my dearest life, might have been consumed by it, as you will be
convinced in the morning by ocular demonstration.