☞ Let me stop to admire, and to bless my beloved friend, who, unhappily for herself, at an age so tender, unacquainted as she was with the world, and with the vile arts of libertines, having been called upon to sustain the hardest and most shocking trials, from persecuting relations on one hand, and from a villainous lover on the other, has been enabled to give such an illustrious example of fortitude and prudence as never woman gave before her; and who, as I have heretofore observed,192 has made a far greater figure in adversity, than she possibly could have made, had all her shining qualities been exerted in their full force and power, by the ☞ continuance of that prosperous run of fortune which attended her for eighteen years of life out of nineteen.
☞ But now, my dear, do I apprehend, that you are in greater danger than ever yet you have been in; if you are not married in a week; and yet stay in this abominable house. For were you out of it, I own I should not be much afraid for you. These are my thoughts, on the most deliberate ☞ consideration: “That he is now convinced, that he has not been able to draw you off your guard: that therefore, if he can obtain no new advantage over you as he goes along, he is resolved to do you all the poor justice that it is in the power of such a wretch as he to do you. He is the rather induced to this, as he sees that all his own family have warmly engaged themselves in your cause: and that it is ☞ his highest interest to be just to you. Then the horrid wretch loves you (as well he may) above all women. I have no doubt of this: with such a love ☞ as such a wretch is capable of: with such a love as Herod loved his Marianne. He is now therefore, very probably, at last, in earnest.” I took time for inquiries of different natures, as I knew, by the train you are in, that whatever his designs are, they cannot ripen either for good or ☞ evil till something shall result from this device of his about Tomlinson and your uncle. Device I have no doubt that it is, whatever this dark, this impenetrable spirit intends by it.
☞ And yet I find it to be true, that Counsellor Williams (whom Mr. Hickman knows to be a man of eminence in his profession) has actually as good ☞ as finished the settlements: that two draughts of them have been made; one avowedly to be sent to one Captain Tomlinson, as the clerk says:—and I find that a license has actually been more than once endeavoured to be obtained; and that difficulties have hitherto been made, equally to Lovelace’s ☞ vexation and disappointment. My mother’s proctor, who is very intimate with the proctor applied to by the wretch, has come at this information in confidence; and hints, that, as Mr. Lovelace is a man of high fortunes, these difficulties will probably be got over. But here follow the causes of my apprehension of your danger; which I should not have had a thought ☞ of (since nothing very vile has yet been attempted) but on finding what a house you are in, and, on that discovery, laying together and ruminating on past occurrences. “You are obliged, from the present favourable ☞ appearances, to give him your company whenever he requests it.—You are under a necessity of forgetting, or seeming to forget, past disobligations; and to receive his addresses as those of a betrothed lover.—You will incur the censure of prudery and affectation, even perhaps in your own apprehension, if you keep him at that distance which has hitherto ☞ been your security.—His sudden (and as suddenly recovered) illness has given him an opportunity to find out that you love him. (Alas! my dear, I knew you loved him!) He is, as you relate, every ☞ hour more and more an encroacher upon it. He has seemed to change his nature,
