Stop!—Beware!—I am not master of my own affections! I am in a state little short of phrensy! Be the means fair or foul, mine you shall be—The decrees of Fate are not more fixed—I have sworn it, and though fire from Heaven waited to devour me, I will keep my oath!—Could you even yet but think of me as perhaps I deserve—! I say, could you, madam—
I cannot will not marry you! Nothing you can say, nothing you can threaten, nothing you can act shall make me!
Be less hasty in your contempt!—Fear me not!—Scorn for scorn, injury for injury, and hate for hate!
I hate only your errors! I scorn nothing but vice—On the virtues of which a mind like yours is capable my soul would dilate with ecstasy, and my heart would doat! But you have sold yourself to crookedness! Base threats, unmanly terrors, and brute violence are your despicable engines!—Wretched man! They are impotent!—They turn upon yourself; me they cannot harm!—I am above you!
I care not for myself—I have already secured infamy—I have paid the price and will enjoy the forfeiture—Had you treated me with the generous ardent love I so early felt for you, all had been well—I the happiest of men, and you the first of women! But your own injustice has dug the pit into which we must all down—It is wide and welcome ruin!—Even now, contemned as I have been, scorned as I am, I would fain use lenity and feel kindness. I will take retribution—no power shall prevent me—but I would take it tenderly.
Oh shame upon you, man!—Tenderly?—Can the mischief and the misery in which you have involved yourself and so many others, can treachery, brutal force, bruises, imprisonment, and rape be coupled with tenderness? If you have any spark of noble feeling yet remaining in your heart, cherish it: but if not, speak truth to yourself! Do not attempt to varnish such foul and detestable guilt with fair words.
I would advise, not varnish! What I have done I have done—I know my doom—I am already branded! Opprobrium has set her indelible mark upon me! I am indexed to all eternity!
You mistake, Clifton!—Beware!—You mistake! You mistake! [It is impossible to imagine, Fairfax, the energy with which these exclamations burst from her—It was a fleeting but false cordial to my heart.] Of all your errors that is the most fatal! Whatever rooted prejudices or unjust laws may assert to the contrary, we are accountable only for what we do, not for what we have done. Clifton beware! Mark me—I owe you no enmity for the past: I combat only with the present.
Do not delude me with shadows. Bring your doctrine to the test: if you bear me no enmity, if what I have done can be forgotten, and what I would do—! Madam—! Anna—!—Once more, and for the last time—take me!
It cannot be!—It cannot be!