im his own pleasure
rather than my advantage; and if I were at all desirous of opposing an
obstacle to his unreasonable suit, they were ready, they said, to marry
me at once to anyone I preferred, either among the leading people of our
own town, or of any of those in the neighbourhood; for with their wealth
and my good name, a match might be looked for in any quarter. This offer,
and their sound advice strengthened my resolution, and I never gave Don
Fernando a word in reply that could hold out to him any hope of success,
however remote.

"All this caution of mine, which he must have taken for coyness, had
apparently the effect of increasing his wanton appetite--for that is the
name I give to his passion for me; had it been what he declared it to be,
you would not know of it now, because there would have been no occasion
to tell you of it. At length he learned that my parents were
contemplating marriage for me in order to put an end to his hopes of
obtaining possession of me, or at least to secure additional protectors
to watch over me, and this intelligence or suspicion made him act as you
shall hear. One night, as I was in my chamber with no other companion
than a damsel who waited on me, with the doors carefully locked lest my
honour should be imperilled through any carelessness, I know not nor can
conceive how it happened, but, with all this seclusion and these
precautions, and in the solitude and silence of my retirement, I found
him standing before me, a vision that so astounded me that it deprived my
eyes of sight, and my tongue of speech. I had no power to utter a cry,
nor, I think, did he give me time to utter one, as he immediately
approached me, and taking me in his arms (for, overwhelmed as I was, I
was powerless, I say, to help myself), he began to make such professions
to me that I know not how falsehood could have had the power of dressing
them up to seem so like truth; and the traitor contrived that his tears
should vouch for his words, and his sighs for his sincerity.

"I, a poor young creature alone, ill versed among my people in cases such
as this, began, I know not how, to think all these lying protestations
true, though without being moved by his sighs and tears to anything more
than pure compassion; and so, as the first feeling of bewilderment passed
away, and I began in some degree to recover myself, I said to him with
more courage than I thought I could have possessed, 'If, as I am now in
your a