.

Your resentments, my dearest life, I will own to be well grounded. I
will acknowledge that I have been all in fault. On my knee, [and down I
dropt,] I ask your pardon. And can you refuse to ratify your own
promise? Look forward to the happy prospect before us. See you not my
Lord M. and Lady Sarah longing to bless you, for blessing me, and their
whole family? Can you take no pleasure in the promised visit of Lady
Betty and my cousin Montague? And in the protection they offer you, if
you are dissatisfied with mine? Have you no wish to see your uncle's
friend? Stay only till Captain Tomlinson comes. Receive from him the
news of your uncle's compliance with the wishes of both.

She seemed altogether distressed; was ready to sink; and forced to lean
against the wainscot, as I kneeled at her feet. A stream of tears at
last burst from her less indignant eyes. Good heaven! said she, lifting
up her lovely face, and clasped hands, what is at last to be my destiny?
Deliver me from this dangerous man; and direct me--I know not what to do,
what I can do, nor what I ought to do!

The women, as I had owned our marriage to be but half completed, heard
nothing in this whole scene to contradict (not flagrantly to contradict)
what I had asserted. They believed they saw in her returning temper, and
staggered resolution, a love for me, which her indignation had before
suppressed; and they joined to persuade her to tarry till the Captain
came, and to hear his proposals; representing the dangers to which she
would be exposed; the fatigues she might endure; a lady of her
appearance, unguarded, unprotected. On the other hand they dwelt upon my
declared contrition, and on my promises; for the performance of which
they offered to be bound. So much had my kneeling humility affected
them.

Women, Jack, tacitly acknowledge the inferiority of their sex, in the
pride they take to behold a kneeling lover at their feet.

She turned from me, and threw herself into a chair.

I arose and approached her with reverence. My dearest creature, said I,
and was proceeding, but, with a face glowing with conscious dignity, she
interrupted me--Ungenerous, ungrateful Lovelace! You know not the value
of the heart you have insulted! Nor can you conceive how much my soul
despises your meanness. But meanness must ever be the portion of the
man, who can act vilely!

The women believing we were likely to be on better terms, retired. The
dear