What you, or Mrs. Sinclair, or somebody (I cannot tell who) have done to my poor head, you best know:  but I shall never be what I was.  My head is gone.  I have wept away all my brain, I believe; for I can weep no more.  Indeed I have had my full share; so it is no matter.

But, good now, Lovelace, don’t set Mrs. Sinclair upon me again.—­I never did her any harm.  She so affrights me, when I see her!—­Ever since—­when was it?  I cannot tell.  You can, I suppose.  She may be a good woman, as far as I know.  She was the wife of a man of honour—­very likely—­though forced to let lodgings for a livelihood.  Poor gentlewoman!  Let her know I pity her:  but don’t let her come near me again—­pray don’t!

Yet she may be a very good woman—­

What would I say!—­I forget what I was going to say.

O Lovelace, you are Satan himself; or he helps you out in every thing; and that’s as bad!

But have you really and truly sold yourself to him?  And for how long? 
What duration is your reign to have?

Poor man!  The contract will be out:  and then what will be your fate!

O Lovelace! if you could be sorry for yourself, I would be sorry too—­but when all my doors are fast, and nothing but the key-hole open, and the key of late put into that, to be where you are, in a manner without opening any of them—­O wretched, wretched Clarissa Harlowe!

For I never will be Lovelace—­let my uncle take it as he pleases.

Well, but now I remember what I was going to say—­it is for your good—­ not mine—­for nothing can do me good now!—­O thou villanous man! thou hated Lovelace!

But Mrs. Sinclair may be a good woman—­if you love me—­but that you don’t —­but don’t let her bluster up with her worse than mannish airs to me again!  O she is a frightful woman!  If she be a woman!  She needed not to put on that fearful mask to scare me out of my poor wits.  But don’t tell her what I say—­I have no hatred to her—­it is only fright, and foolish fear, that’s all.—­She may not be a bad woman—­but neither are all men, any more than all women alike—­God forbid they should be like you!

Alas! you have killed my head among you—­I don’t say who did it!—­God forgive you all!—­But had it not been better to have put me out of all your ways at once?  You might safely have done it!  For nobody would require me at your hands—­no, not a soul—­except, indeed, Miss Howe would have said, when she should see you, What, Lovelace, have you done with Clarissa Harlowe?—­And then you could have given any slight, gay answer—­ sent her beyond sea; or, she has run away from me, as she did from her parents.  And this would have been easily credited; for you know, Lovelace, she that could run away from them, might very well run away from you.

But this is nothing to what I wanted to say.  Now I have it.

I have lost it again—­This foolish wench comes teasing me—­for what purpose should I eat?  For what end should I wish to live?—­I tell thee, Dorcas, I will neither eat nor drink.  I cannot be worse than I am.