Capt.  I am ready to hear all your doubts, Madam, and to clear them up—­

Cl.  I will only put it, Sir, to your conscience and honour—­

The dog sat uneasy—­he shuffled with his feet—­her eye was upon him—­he was, therefore, after the rebuff he had met with, afraid to look at me for my motions; and now turned his eyes towards me, then from me, as if he would unlook his own looks.

Cl.  That all is true, that you have written, and that you have told me.

I gave him a right forward nod, and a frown—­as much as to say, swear to it, Captain.  But the varlet did not round it off as I would have had him.  However, he averred that it was.

He had hoped, he said, that the circumstances with which his commission was attended, and what he had communicated to her, which he could not know but from his dear friend, her uncle, might have shielded him even from the shadow of suspicion.  But I am contented, said he, stammering, to be thought—­to be thought—­what—­what you please to think of me—­till, till, you are satisfied—­

A whore’s-bird!

Cl.  The circumstances you refer to, I must own ought to shield you, Sir, from suspicion; but the man before you is a man that would make an angel suspected, should that angel plead for him.

I came forward,—­traversed the room,—­was indeed in a bl—­dy passion.—­I have no patience, Madam!—­and again I bit my unpersuasive lips.

Cl.  No man ought to be impatient at imputations he is not ashamed to deserve.  An innocent man will not be outrageous upon such imputations.  A guilty man ought not. [Most excellently would this charming creature cap sentences with Lord M.!] But I am not now trying you, Sir, [to me,] on the foot of your merits.  I am only sorry that I am constrained to put questions to this worthier gentleman, [worthier gentleman, Jack!] which, perhaps, I ought not to put, so far as they regard himself.  And I hope, Captain Tomlinson, that you, who know not Mr. Lovelace so well, as, to my unhappiness, I do, and who have children of your own, will excuse a poor young creature, who is deprived of all worldly protection, and who has been insulted and endangered by the most designing man in the world, and, perhaps, by a confederacy of his creatures.

There she stopt; and stood up, and looked at me; fear, nevertheless, apparently mingled with her anger.—­And so it ought.  I was glad, however, of this poor sign of love; no one fears whom they value not.

Women’s tongues were licensed, I was going to say; but my conscience would not let me call her a woman; nor use to her so vulgar a phrase.  I could only rave by my motions, lift up my eyes, spread my hands, rub my face, pull my wig, and look like a fool.  Indeed, I had a great mind to run mad.  Had I been alone with her, I would; and she should have taken consequences.

The Captain interposed in my behalf; gently, however, and as a man not quite sure that he was himself acquitted.  Some of the pleas we had both insisted on he again enforced; and, speaking low, Poor gentleman! said he, who can but pity him?  Indeed, Madam, it is easy to see, with all his failings, the power you have over him!