I had actually done so, I told her, on seeing her strange uneasiness.  But it was then gone to fetch a doctor for Miss Montague, lest his chariot should not be so ready.

Ah!  Lovelace! said she, with a doubting face; anguish in her imploring eye.

Lady Betty would think it very strange, I told her, if she were to know it was so disagreeable to her to stay one night for her company in the house where she had passed so many.

She called me names upon this—­she had called me names before.—­I was patient.

Let her go to Lady Betty’s lodgings then; directly go; if the person I called Lady Betty was really Lady Betty.

If, my dear!  Good Heaven!  What a villain does that if show you believe me to be!

I cannot help it—­I beseech you once more, let me go to Mrs. Leeson’s, if that if ought not to be said.

Then assuming a more resolute spirit—­I will go!  I will inquire my way!  —­I will go by myself!—­and would have rushed by me.

I folded my arms about her to detain her; pleading the bad way I heard poor Charlotte was in; and what a farther concern her impatience, if she went, would give to poor Charlotte.

She would believe nothing I said, unless I would instantly order a coach, (since she was not to have Lady Betty’s, nor was permitted to go to Mrs. Leeson’s,) and let her go in it to Hampstead, late as it was, and all alone, so much the better; for in the house of people of whom Lady Betty, upon inquiry, had heard a bad character, [Dropt foolishly this, by my prating new relation, in order to do credit to herself, by depreciating others,] every thing, and every face, looking with so much meaning vileness, as well as my own, [thou art still too sensible, thought I, my charmer!] she was resolved not to stay another night.

Dreading what might happen as to her intellects, and being very apprehensive that she might possibly go through a great deal before morning, (though more violent she could not well be with the worst she dreaded,) I humoured her, and ordered Will. to endeavour to get a coach directly, to carry us to Hampstead; I cared not at what price.

Robbers, with whom I would have terrified her, she feared not—­I was all her fear, I found; and this house her terror:  for I saw plainly that she now believed that Lady Betty and Miss Montague were both impostors.

But her mistrust is a little of the latest to do her service!

And, O Jack, the rage of love, the rage of revenge is upon me! by turns they tear me!  The progress already made—­the women’s instigations—­the power I shall have to try her to the utmost, and still to marry her, if she be not to be brought to cohabitation—­let me perish, Belford, if she escape me now!

***

Will. is not yet come back.  Near eleven.

***

Will. is this moment returned.  No coach to be got, either for love or money.