I request, I humbly intreat you would not expose yourself to the injuries of the night air, and the want of sleep!
I will sleep no more! I want no sleep; I fear no injuries; not even those you intend me!
Indeed, madam, you do not know the danger—
Mimic benevolence and virtue no more, Clifton! It is base in you! It is beneath a mind like yours!—You are a mistaken man! Dreadfully mistaken! You think me devoted, but I am safe. Unless you kill, you never can conquer me! Beware! Turn back! Destruction is gaping for you, if you proceed!
Need she have told me this, Fairfax? Could she think I knew it not?—But she too is mistaken. Her courage is high, I grant, is admirable; and, were any other but I her opponent, as she says, not to be conquered! I adore the noble qualities of her mind; but great though they are, when she defies me she over-rates them.
I own her warning was awful! My heart shrunk from it, and I retired; taking care that she should hear me as I went, that she might be encouraged to go to rest. My well-meant kindness was vain. She never did confide in me, and never can. I heard her call Laura, and order her to strike a light, set an arm chair, and bring her clothes: after which I understood, from what I heard, that she dressed herself and sat down in it, with her back to the door, there waiting patiently till the morning.
How she will behave, or what she will say to Laura I cannot divine. Most probably she will insist on banishing her the apartment; for she never gave servants much employment, and always doubted whether the keeping of them were not an immoral act, therefore is little in want of their assistance.
But let her discard this treacherous and now ineffective tool. I want her no more. I will not quit the house, Fairfax; I will neither eat nor sleep, till I have put her to the trial which she so rashly defies! At her uncle's table she defied me, and imagined she had gazed me into cowardice. She knew me not: it was but making vengeance doubly sure. This experience ere now should have taught her. Has she escaped me? Is she not here? Does she not feel herself in the ravisher's arms? If not, a few hours only and she shall!
Let her not be vain of this second repulse she has given me; it ought to increase her terror, for it does but add to my despair. My distempered soul will take no medicine but one, and that must be administered; though more venomous than the sting of scorpion or tooth of serpent, and more speedy in dissolution.
I left her room that she might breakfast undisturbed. There is something admirably, astonishingly firm, in the texture of her mind. Laura has been down, babbling to me all she knew. At eight o'clock, when it had been light a full hour, Anna, after once or twice crossing her chamber to consider, turned the key and resolutely opened the door; expecting by her manner, Laura says, to see me rush in; for she threw it suddenly open, as if fearful it should knock her down.