Impossible, Madam!  I know that Mr. Lovelace would not hear me with patience on such a topic.  And I do assure you that I have some spirit, and should not care to take an indignity from him or from any man living.

She paused—­then resuming—­and think you, Sir, that my uncle will refuse to receive a letter from me? [How averse, Jack, to concede a tittle in my favour!]

I know, Madam, as matters are circumstanced, that he would not answer it.  If you please I will carry one down from you.

And will he not pursue his intentions in my favour, nor be himself reconciled to me, except I am married?

From what your brother gives out, and effects to believe, on Mr. Lovelace’s living with you in the same—­

No more, Sir—­I am an unhappy creature!

He then re-urged, that it would be in her power instantly, or on the morrow, to put an end to all her difficulties.

How can that be? said she:  the license still to be obtained?  The settlements still to be signed?  Miss Howe’s answer to my last unreceived?—­And shall I, Sir, be in such a hurry, as if I thought my honour in danger if I delayed?  Yet marry the man from whom only it can be endangered!—­Unhappy, thrice unhappy Clarissa Harlowe!—­In how many difficulties has one rash step involved thee!—­And she turned from him and wept.

The varlet, by way of comfort, wept too:  yet her tears, as he might have observed, were tears that indicated rather a yielding than a perverse temper.

There is a sort of stone, thou knowest, so soft in the quarry, that it may in manner be cut with a knife; but if the opportunity not be taken, and it is exposed to the air for any time, it will become as hard as marble, and then with difficulty it yields to the chisel.* So this lady, not taken at the moment, after a turn or two across the room, gained more resolution! and then she declared, as she had done once before, that she would wait the issue of Miss Howe’s answer to the letter she had sent her from hence, and take her measures accordingly—­leaving it to him, mean time, to make what report he thought fit to her uncle—­the kindest that truth could bear, she doubted not from Captain Tomlinson:  and she should be glad of a few lines from him, to hear what that was.

* The nature of the Bath stone, in particular.

She wished him a good journey.  She complained of her head; and was about to withdraw:  but I stept round to the door next the stairs, as if I had but just come in from the garden (which, as I entered, I called a very pretty one) and took her reluctant hand as she was going out:  My dearest life, you are not going?—­What hopes, Captain?—­Have you not some hopes to give me of pardon and reconciliation?

She said she would not be detained.  But I would not let her go till she had promised to return, when the Captain had reported to me what her resolution was.

And when he had, I sent up and claimed her promise; and she came down again, and repeated (as what she was determined upon) that she would wait for Miss Howe’s answers to the letter she had written to her, and take her measures according to its contents.