Mean time, I am in strange agitations.  I must suppress them, if possible, before I venture into her presence.—­My heart bounces my bosom from the table.  I will lay down my pen, and wholly resign to its impulses.

LETTER XXXVI

Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, ESQ. 
Friday night, or rather sat.  Morn.  One o’clock.

I thought I should not have had either time or inclination to write another line before I got to M. Hall.  But, having the first, must find the last; since I can neither sleep, nor do any thing but write, if I can do that.  I am most confoundedly out of humour.  The reason let it follow; if it will follow—­nor preparation for it from me.

I tried by gentleness and love to soften—­What?—­Marble.  A heart incapable either of love or gentleness.  Her past injuries for ever in her head.  Ready to receive a favour; the permission to go to Hampstead:  but neither to deserve it, nor return any.  So my scheme of the gentle kind was soon given over.

I then wanted to provoke her:  like a coward boy, who waits for the first blow before he can persuade himself to fight, I half challenged her to challenge or defy me.  She seemed aware of her danger; and would not directly brave my resentment:  but kept such a middle course, that I neither could find a pretence to offend, nor reason to hope:  yet she believed my tale, that her uncle would come to Kentish-town, and seemed not to apprehend that Tomlinson was an impostor.

She was very uneasy, upon the whole, in my company:  wanted often to break from me:  yet so held me to my purpose of permitting her to go to Hampstead, that I knew not how to get off it; although it was impossible, in my precarious situation with her, to think of performing it.

In this situation; the women ready to assist; and, if I proceeded not, as ready to ridicule me; what had I left me, but to pursue the concerted scheme, and to seek a pretence to quarrel with her, in order to revoke my promised permission, and to convince her that I would not be upbraided as the most brutal of ravishers for nothing?

I had agreed with the women, that if I could not find a pretence in her presence to begin my operations, the note should lie in my way, and I was to pick it up, soon after her retiring from me.  But I began to doubt at near ten o’clock, (so earnest was she to leave me, suspecting my over-warm behaviour to her, and eager grasping of her hand two or three times, with eye-strings, as I felt, on the strain, while her eyes showed uneasiness and apprehension,) that if she actually retired for the night, it might be a chance whether it would be easy to come at her again.  Loth, therefore, to run such a risk, I stept out a little after ten, with intent to alter the preconcerted disposition a little; saying I would attend her again instantly.  But as I returned I met her at the door, intending to withdraw for the night.  I could not persuade her to go back:  nor had I presence of mind (so full of complaisance as I was to her just before) to stay her by force:  so she slid through my hands into her own apartment.  I had nothing to do, therefore, but to let my former concert take place.