worse than myself, who adores her
not as I adore her, may have seized her, and taken advantage of her
distress!--Let me perish, Belford, if a whole hecatomb of innocents, as
the little plagues are called, shall atone for the broken promises and
wicked artifices of this cruel creature!

***

Going home, as I did, with resolutions favourable to her, judge thou of
my distraction, when her escape was first hinted to me, although but in
broken sentences. I knew not what I said, nor what I did. I wanted to
kill somebody. I flew out of one room into another, who broke the matter
to me. I charged bribery and corruption, in my first fury, upon all; and
threatened destruction to old and young, as they should come in my way.

Dorcas continues locked up from me: Sally and Polly have not yet dared to
appear: the vile Sinclair--

But here comes the odious devil. She taps at the door, thought that's
only a-jar, whining and snuffling, to try, I suppose, to coax me into
temper.

***

What a helpless state, where a man can only execrate himself and others;
the occasion of his rage remaining; the evil increasing upon reflection;
time itself conspiring to deepen it!--O how I curs'd her!

I have her now, methinks, before me, blubbering--how odious does sorrow
make an ugly face!--Thine, Jack, and this old beldam's, in penitentials,
instead of moving compassion, must evermore confirm hatred; while beauty
in tears, is beauty heightened, and what my heart has ever delighted to
see.----

'What excuse!--Confound you, and your cursed daughters, what excuse can
you make?--Is she not gone--Has she not escaped?--But before I am quite
distracted, before I commit half a hundred murders, let me hear how it
was.'----

***

I have heard her story!--Art, damn'd, confounded, wicked, unpardonable
art, is a woman of her character--But show me a woman, and I'll show thee
a plotter!--This plaguy sex is art itself: every individual of it is a
plotter by nature.

This is the substance of the old wretch's account.

She told me, 'That I had no sooner left the vile house, than Dorcas
acquainted the syren' [Do, Jack, let me call her names!--I beseech thee,
Jack, to permit me to call her names!] 'that Dorcas acquainted her lady
with it; and that I had left word, that I was gone to doctors-commons,
and should be heard of for some hours at the Horn there, if inquired
after by the counsellor, or anybody else: that afterwards I should be