"'Hear me, dearest creature. You have received with favour my addresses, yet, by declining my fervent tender of myself you have given me apprehension of delay. Your brother's schemes are not given up. I have taken care to give Mrs. Sinclair a reason why two apartments are necessary for us in our retirement.'
"I raved at him. I would have flung from him, yet where could I go?
"Still, he insisted upon the propriety of appearing to be married. 'But since you dislike what I have said, let me implore you,' he added, 'to give a sanction to it by naming an early day--would to Heaven it were to-morrow!'
"What could I say? I verily believe, had he urged me in a proper way, I should have consented to meet him at a more sacred place than the parlour below.
"The widow now directs all her talk to me as 'Mrs. Lovelace,' and I, with a very ill-grace, bear it."
"April 28. Mr. Lovelace has returned already. 'My dearest life,' said he. 'I cannot leave you for so long a time as you seem to expect I should. Spare yourself the trouble of writing to any of your friends till we are married. When they know we are married, your brother's plots will be at an end, and they must all be reconciled to you. Why, then, would you banish me from you? Why will you not give the man who has brought you into difficulties, and who so honourably wishes to extricate you from them, the happiness of doing so?'
"But, my dear although the opportunity was so inviting, he urged not for the day. Which is the more extraordinary, as he was so pressing for marriage before we came to town."
After some weeks, Clarissa succeeds in escaping from Mrs. Sinclair's house and takes lodgings at Hampstead. But Lovelace finds out her refuge, and sends two women, who pretend to be his relatives, Lady Betty and Lady Sarah, and Clarissa is beguiled back to Mrs. Sinclair's for an interview. Once inside the house, however, she is not allowed to leave it. Her health is now seriously injured, and her letters home have been answered by her father's curse.
Lovelace to his friend, John Belford:
"June 18. I went out early this morning, and returned just now, when I was informed that my beloved, in my absence, had taken it into her head to attempt to get away.