"Is it I who am?"
"You do not know me."
"But you are the woman of all the world who knows me, Laetitia."
"Can you think it better for you to be known?"
He was about to say other words: he checked them. "I believe I do not know myself. Anything you will, only give me your hand; give it; trust to me; you shall direct me. If I have faults, help me to obliterate them."
"Will you not expect me to regard them as the virtues of meaner men?"
"You will be my wife!"
Laetitia broke from him, crying: "Your wife, your critic! Oh, I cannot think it possible. Send for the ladies. Let them hear me."
"They are at hand," said Willoughby, opening the door.
They were in one of the upper rooms anxiously on the watch.