'He therefore most earnestly repeats his importunities for the supplicated interview.' He says, 'He has business of consequence in London: but cannot stir from the inconvenient spot where he has for some time resided, in disguises unworthy of himself, until he can be absolutely certain, that I shall not be prevailed upon, either by force or otherwise; and until he finds me delivered from the insults of my brother. Nor ought this to be an indifferent point to one, for whose sake all the world reports me to be used unworthily. But one remark, he says, he cannot help making: that did my friends know the little favour I shew him, and the very great distance I keep him at, they would have no reason to confine me on his account. And another, that they themselves seem to think him entitled to a different usage, and expect that he receives it; when, in truth, what he meets with from me is exactly what they wish him to meet with, excepting in the favour of my correspondence I honour him with; upon which, he says, he puts the highest value, and for the sake of which he has submitted to a thousand indignities.
'He renews his professions of reformation. He is convinced, he says, that he has already run a long and dangerous course; and that it is high time to think of returning. It must be from proper conviction, he says, that a person who has lived too gay a life, resolves to reclaim, before age or sufferings come upon him.
'All generous spirits, he observes, hate compulsion. Upon this observation he dwells; but regrets, that he is likely to owe all his hopes to this compulsion; this injudicious compulsion, he justly calls it; and none to my esteem for him. Although he presumes upon some merit—in this implicit regard to my will—in the bearing the daily indignities offered not only to him, but to his relations, by my brother—in the nightly watchings, his present indisposition makes him mention, or he had not debased the nobleness of his passion for me, by such a selfish instance.'
I cannot but say, I am sorry the man is not well.
I am afraid to ask you, my dear, what you would have done, thus situated. But what I have done, I have done. In a word, I wrote, 'That I would, if possible, give him a meeting to-morrow night, between the hours of nine and twelve, by the ivy summer-house, or in it, or near the great cascade, at the bottom of the garden; and would unbolt the door, that he might come in by his own key. But that, if I found the meeting impracticable, or should change my mind, I would signify as much by another line; which he must wait for until it were dark.'
TUESDAY, ELEVEN O'CLOCK.
I am just returned from depositing my billet. How diligent is this man! It is plain he was in waiting: for I had walked but a few paces, after I had deposited it, when, my heart misgiving me, I returned, to have taken it back, in order to reconsider it as I walked, and whether I should or should not let it go. But I found it gone.
In all probability, there was but a brick wall, of a few inches thick, between Mr. Lovelace and me, at the very time I put the letter under the brick!
I am come back dissatisfied with myself. But I think, my dear, there can be no harm in meeting him. If I do not, he may take some violent measures. What he knows of the treatment I meet with in malice to him, and with the view to frustrate all his hopes, may make him desperate. His behaviour last time I saw him, under the disadvantages of time and place, and surprised as I was, gives me no apprehension of any thing but discovery. What he requires is not unreasonable, and cannot affect my future choice and determination: it is only to assure him from my own lips, that I never will be the wife of a man I hate. If I have not an opportunity to meet without hazard or detection, he must once more bear the disappointment. All his trouble, and mine too, is owing to his faulty character. This, although I hate tyranny and arrogance in all shapes, makes me think less of the risques he runs, and the fatigues he undergoes, than otherwise I should do; and still less, as my sufferings (derived from the same source) are greater than his.
Betty confirms this intimation, that I must go to my uncle's on Thursday. She was sent on purpose to direct me to prepare myself for going, and to help me to get every thing up in order for my removal.