She stopped here, and, sighing, turned her sweet face from me, drying up with her handkerchief those tears which she endeavoured to restrain; and, when she could not, to conceal from my sight.

As I told thee, I had prepared myself for high passions, raving, flying, tearing execration; these transient violences, the workings of sudden grief, and shame, and vengeance, would have set us upon a par with each other, and quitted scores.  These have I been accustomed to; and as nothing violent is lasting, with these I could have wished to encounter.  But such a majestic composure—­seeking me—­whom, yet it is plain, by her attempt to get away, she would have avoided seeking—­no Lucretia-like vengeance upon herself in her thought—­yet swallowed up, her whole mind swallowed up, as I may say, by a grief so heavy, as, in her own words, to be beyond the power of speech to express—­and to be able, discomposed as she was, to the very morning, to put such a home-question to me, as if she had penetrated my future view—­how could I avoid looking like a fool, and answering, as before, in broken sentences and confusion?

What—­what-a—­what has been done—­I, I, I—­cannot but say—­must own—­must confess—­hem—­hem——­is not right—­is not what should have been—­but-a—­ but—­but—­I am truly—­truly—­sorry for it—­upon my soul I am—­and—­and—­ will do all—­do every thing—­do what—­whatever is incumbent upon me—­all that you—­that you—­that you shall require, to make you amends!——­

O Belford!  Belford! whose the triumph now!  Her’s, or mine?

Amends!  O thou truly despicable wretch!  Then lifting up her eyes—­Good Heaven! who shall pity the creature who could fall by so base a mind!—­ Yet—­[and then she looked indignantly upon me!] yet, I hate thee not (base and low-souled as thou art!) half so much as I hate myself, that I saw thee not sooner in thy proper colours!  That I hoped either morality, gratitude, or humanity, from a libertine, who, to be a libertine, must have got over and defied all moral sanctions.*

* Her cousin Morden’s words to her in his letter from Florence.  See Vol.  IV.  Letter XIX.

She then called upon her cousin Morden’s name, as if he had warned her against a man of free principles; and walked towards the window; her handkerchief at her eyes.  But, turning short towards me, with an air of mingled scorn and majesty, [what, at the moment, would I have given never to have injured her!] What amends hast thou to propose!  What amends can such a one as thou make to a person of spirit, or common sense, for the evils thou hast so inhumanely made me suffer?

As soon, Madam—­as soon—­as—­as soon as your uncle—­or—­not waiting——­

Thou wouldest tell me, I suppose—­I know what thou wouldest tell me—­But thinkest thou, that marriage will satisfy for a guilt like thine?  Destitute as thou hast made me both of friends and fortune, I too much despise the wretch, who could rob himself of his wife’s virtue, to endure the thoughts of thee in the light thou seemest to hope I will accept thee in!—­