☞ And thus situated, should he offer greater freedoms, must you not forgive him? I fear nothing (as I know who has said) that devil carnate or incarnate can fairly do against a ☞ virtue so established.195—But surprises, my dear, in such a house as you are in, and in such circumstances as I have mentioned, I greatly fear! the ☞ man one who has already triumphed over persons worthy of his alliance.
☞ What then have you to do, but to fly this house, this infernal house!—O that your heart would let you fly the man!
☞ If you should be disposed so to do, Mrs. Townsend shall be ready at your command.—But if you meet with no impediments, no new causes of doubt, I think your reputation in the eye of the world, ☞ though not your happiness, is concerned, that you should be his—and yet I cannot bear that these libertines should be rewarded for their villany with the best of the sex, when the worst of it are too good for them. But if you meet with the least ground for suspicion; if he would detain you at the odious house, or wish you to stay, now you know what ☞ the people are; fly him, whatever your prospects are, as well as them. In one of your next airings, if you have no other ☞ way, refuse to return with him. Name me for your intelligencer, that you are in a bad house, and if you think you cannot now break with him, seem rather ☞ to believe that he may not know it to be so; and that I do not believe he does: and yet this belief in us both must appear to be very gross. But suppose you desire to go out of town for the air, this sultry weather, and insist upon it? You may plead your health for so doing. He dare not ☞ resist such a plea. Your brother’s foolish scheme, I am told, is certainly given up; so you need not be afraid on that account. If you do not fly the house upon reading of this, or some way or other get out of it, I shall judge of his power over you, by the little you will have over either him or yourself.
☞ One of my informers has made such slight inquiries concerning Mrs. Fretchville. Did he ever name to you the street or square she lived in?—I don’t ☞ remember that you, in any of yours, mentioned the place of her abode to me. Strange, very strange, this, I think! No such person or house can be found, near any of the new streets or squares, where the lights I had from your letters led me to imagine ☞ her house might be.—Ask him what street the house is in, if he has not told you; and let me ☞ know. If he make a difficulty of that circumstance, it will amount to a detection.—And yet, I think, you will have enough without this. I shall send this long letter by Collins, who changes his day to oblige me; and that he may try (now I know where you are) to get it into your own hands. If he cannot, he will leave it at Wilson’s. As none of our letters by that conveyance have miscarried when you have been in more apparently disagreeable situations than you are in at present. I hope that this will go safe, if Collins should be obliged to leave it there.
☞ I wrote a short letter to you in my first agitations. It contained not above twenty lines, all full of fright, alarm, and execration. But being afraid that my vehemence would too much affect you, I thought it better to wait a little, as well for the reasons already hinted at, as to be able to give you as many particulars as I could, and my thoughts upon all. And as they have offered, or may offer, you will be sufficiently armed to resist all his machinations, be what they will.
☞ One word more. Command me up, if I can be of the least service or pleasure to you. I value not fame; I value not censure; nor even life itself, I verily think, as I do your honour, and your friendship—For, is not your honour my honour? And is not your friendship the pride of my life? May Heaven preserve you, my dearest creature, in honour and safety, is the prayer, the hourly prayer, of
To Miss Howe
My Dearest Creature,
How you have shocked, confounded, surprised, astonished me, by your dreadful communication!—My heart is too weak to bear up against such a stroke as
