She withdrew to the door, and set her back against it, holding the pointed knife to her heaving bosom; while the women held me, beseeching me not to provoke the violent lady—for their house sake, and be curs’d to them, they besought me—and all three hung upon me—while the truly heroic lady braved me at that distance:
‘Approach me, Lovelace, with resentment, if thou wilt. I dare die. It is in defence of my honour. God will be merciful to my poor soul! I expect no more mercy from thee! I have gained this distance, and two steps nearer me, and thou shalt see what I dare do!’——
Leave me, women, to myself, and to my angel!—[They retired at a distance.]—O my beloved creature, how you terrify me! Holding out my arms, and kneeling on one knee—not a step, not a step farther, except to receive my death at that injured hand which is thus held up against a life far dearer to me than my own! I am a villain! the blackest of villains!—Say you will sheath your knife in the injurer’s, not the injured’s heart, and then will I indeed approach you, but not else.
The mother twanged her d—n’d nose; and Sally and Polly pulled out their handkerchiefs, and turned from us. They never in their lives, they told me afterwards, beheld such a scene——
Innocence so triumphant: villany so debased, they must mean!
Unawares to myself, I had moved onward to my angel—‘And dost thou, dost thou, still disclaiming, still advancing—dost thou, dost thou, still insidiously move towards me?’—[And her hand was extended] ‘I dare—I dare—not rashly neither—my heart from principle abhors the act, which thou makest necessary!—God, in thy mercy! [lifting up her eyes and hands] God, in thy mercy!’
I threw myself to the farther end of the room. An ejaculation, a silent ejaculation, employing her thoughts that moment; Polly says the whites of her lovely eyes were only visible: and, in the instant that she extended her hand, assuredly to strike the fatal blow, [how the very recital terrifies me!] she cast her eye towards me, and saw me at the utmost distance the room would allow, and heard my broken voice—my voice was utterly broken; nor knew I what I said, or whether to the purpose or not—and her charming cheeks, that were all in a glow before, turned pale, as if terrified at her own purpose; and lifting up her eyes—‘Thank God!—thank God! said the angel—delivered for the present; for the present delivered—from myself—keep, Sir, that distance;’ [looking down towards me, who was prostrate on the floor, my heart pierced, as with an hundred daggers;] ‘that distance has saved a life; to what reserved, the Almighty only knows!’—
To be happy, Madam; and to make happy!—And, O let me hope for your favour for to-morrow—I will put off my journey till then—and may God—
Swear not, Sir!—with an awful and piercing aspect—you have too often sworn!—God’s eye is upon us!—His more immediate eye; and looked wildly.—But the women looked up to the ceiling, as if afraid of God’s eye, and trembled. And well they might, and I too, who so very lately had each of us the devil in our hearts.
If not to-morrow, Madam, say but next Thursday, your uncle’s birth-day; say but next Thursday!