Your resentments, my dearest life, I will own to be well grounded.  I will acknowledge that I have been all in fault.  On my knee, [and down I dropt,] I ask your pardon.  And can you refuse to ratify your own promise?  Look forward to the happy prospect before us.  See you not my Lord M. and Lady Sarah longing to bless you, for blessing me, and their whole family?  Can you take no pleasure in the promised visit of Lady Betty and my cousin Montague?  And in the protection they offer you, if you are dissatisfied with mine?  Have you no wish to see your uncle’s friend?  Stay only till Captain Tomlinson comes.  Receive from him the news of your uncle’s compliance with the wishes of both.

She seemed altogether distressed; was ready to sink; and forced to lean against the wainscot, as I kneeled at her feet.  A stream of tears at last burst from her less indignant eyes.  Good heaven! said she, lifting up her lovely face, and clasped hands, what is at last to be my destiny?  Deliver me from this dangerous man; and direct me—­I know not what to do, what I can do, nor what I ought to do!

The women, as I had owned our marriage to be but half completed, heard nothing in this whole scene to contradict (not flagrantly to contradict) what I had asserted.  They believed they saw in her returning temper, and staggered resolution, a love for me, which her indignation had before suppressed; and they joined to persuade her to tarry till the Captain came, and to hear his proposals; representing the dangers to which she would be exposed; the fatigues she might endure; a lady of her appearance, unguarded, unprotected.  On the other hand they dwelt upon my declared contrition, and on my promises; for the performance of which they offered to be bound.  So much had my kneeling humility affected them.

Women, Jack, tacitly acknowledge the inferiority of their sex, in the pride they take to behold a kneeling lover at their feet.

She turned from me, and threw herself into a chair.

I arose and approached her with reverence.  My dearest creature, said I, and was proceeding, but, with a face glowing with conscious dignity, she interrupted me—­Ungenerous, ungrateful Lovelace!  You know not the value of the heart you have insulted!  Nor can you conceive how much my soul despises your meanness.  But meanness must ever be the portion of the man, who can act vilely!

The women believing we were likely to be on better terms, retired.  The dear perverse opposed their going; but they saw I was desirous of their absence; and when they had withdrawn, I once more threw myself at her feet, and acknowledged my offences; implored her forgiveness for this one time, and promised the most exact circumspection for the future.

It was impossible for her she said to keep her memory and forgive me.  What hadst thou seen in the conduct of Clarissa Harlowe, that should encourage such an insult upon her as thou didst dare to make?  How meanly must thou think of her, that thou couldst presume to be so guilty, and expect her to be so weak as to forgive thee?