When we reached my room,I requested him to be seated.I said,"It is true,Sir,I have lost my peace of mind for ever,but at present I am quite calm and collected,and I wish to explain to you why I have behaved in so extravagant a way,and to ask for your advice and intercession."He appeared satisfied,and I went on.I had no chance either of exculpating myself,or of probing the question to the bottom,but by stating the naked truth,and therefore I said at once,"Sarah told me,Sir (and I never shall forget the way in which she told me,fixing her dove's eyes upon me,and looking a thousand tender reproaches for the loss of that good opinion,which she held dearer than all the world)she told me,Sir,that as you one day passed the door,which stood a-jar,you saw her in an attitude which a good deal startled you;I mean sitting in my lap,with her arms round my neck,and mine twined round her in the fondest manner.What I wished to ask was,whether this was actually the case,or whether it was a mere invention of her own,to enhance the sense of my obligations to her;for I begin to doubt everything?"--"
Indeed,it was so;and very much surprised and hurt I was to see it.""Well then,Sir,I can only say,that as you saw her sitting then,so she had been sitting for the last year and a half,almost every day of her life,by the hour together;and you may judge yourself,knowing what a nice modest-looking girl she is,whether,after having been admitted to such intimacy with so sweet a creature,and for so long a time,it is not enough to make any one frantic to be received by her as I have been since my return,without any provocation given or cause assigned for it."The old man answered very seriously,and,as I think,sincerely,"What you now tell me,Sir,mortifies and shocks me as much as it can do yourself.I had no idea such a thing was possible.
I was much pained at what I saw;but I thought it an accident,and that it would never happen again."--"It was a constant habit;it has happened a hundred times since,and a thousand before.I lived on her caresses as my daily food,nor can I live without them."So I told him the whole story,"what conjurations,and what mighty magic I won his daughter with,"to be anything but MINE FOR LIFE.Nothing could well exceed his astonishment and apparent mortification."What I had said,"he owned,"had left a weight upon his mind that he should not easily get rid of."I told him,"For myself,I never could recover the blow I had received.I thought,however,for her own sake,she ought to alter her present behaviour.Her marked neglect and dislike,so far from justifying,left her former intimacies without excuse;for nothing could reconcile them to propriety,or even a pretence to common decency,but either love,or friendship so strong and pure that it could put on the guise of love.She was certainly a singular girl.Did she think it right and becoming to be free with strangers,and strange to old friends?"I frankly declared,"I did not see how it was in human nature for any one who was not rendered callous to such familiarities by bestowing them indiscriminately on every one,to grant the extreme and continued indulgences she had done to me,without either liking the man at first,or coming to like him in the end,in spite of herself.When my addresses had nothing,and could have nothing honourable in them,she gave them every encouragement;when I wished to make them honourable,she treated them with the utmost contempt.The terms we had been all along on were such as if she had been to be my bride next day.It was only when I wished her actually to become so,to ensure her own character and my happiness,that she shrunk back with precipitation and panic-fear.There seemed to me something wrong in all this;a want both of common propriety,and I might say,of natural feeling;yet,with all her faults,I loved her,and ever should,beyond any other human being.
I had drank in the poison of her sweetness too long ever to be cured of it;and though I might find it to be poison in the end,it was still in my veins.My only ambition was to be permitted to live with her,and to die in her arms.Be she what she would,treat me how she would,I felt that my soul was wedded to hers;and were she a mere lost creature,I would try to snatch her from perdition,and marry her to-morrow if she would have me.That was the question--"Would she have me,or would she not?"He said he could not tell;but should not attempt to put any constraint upon her inclinations,one way or other.I acquiesced,and added,that "I had brought all this upon myself,by acting contrary to the suggestions of my friend,Mr.-----,who had desired me to take no notice whether she came near me or kept away,whether she smiled or frowned,was kind or contemptuous--all you have to do,is to wait patiently for a month till you are your own man,as you will be in all probability;then make her an offer of your hand,and if she refuses,there's an end of the matter."Mr.L.said,"Well,Sir,and I don't think you can follow a better advice!"I took this as at least a sort of negative encouragement,and so we parted.
