tell me. But thinkest thou that marriage will
satisfy for a guilt like thine? Destitute as thou hast made me both of
friends and fortune, I too much despise the wretch who could rob himself
of his wife's honour, to endure the thoughts of thee in the light thou
seemest to hope I will accept thee. Had I been able to account for
myself and your proceedings, a whole week should not have gone over my
head before I had told you what I now tell you, that the man who has
been the villain to me you have been shall never make me his wife. All
my prospects are shut in. I give myself up for a lost creature as to
this world. Hinder me not from entering upon a life of penitence. Let me
try to secure the only hope I have left. This is all the amends I ask of
you. I repeat, am I now at liberty to dispose of myself as I please?'

"Now comes the fool, the miscreant, hesitating in his broken answer. 'My
dearest love, I am quite confounded. There is no withstanding your
eloquence. If you can forgive a repentant villain, I vow by all that's
sacred--and may a thunderbolt strike me dead at your feet if I am not
sincere--that I will, by marriage, before to-morrow noon, without
waiting for anybody, do you all the justice I can. And you shall ever
after direct me as you please till you have made me more worthy of your
angelic purity. Nor will I presume so much as to touch your garment till
I can call so great a blessing lawfully mine.'

"'Oh, thou guileful betrayer! Hadst thou not seemed beyond the
possibility of forgiveness, I might have been induced to think of taking
a wretched chance with a man so profligate. But it would be criminal to
bind my soul in covenant to a man allied to perdition.'

"'_Allied to perdition_, madam?'

"But she would not hear me, and insisted upon being at her own disposal
for the remainder of her short life. She abhorred me in every light; and
more particularly in that in which I offered myself to her acceptance.

"And saying this she flung from me, leaving me shocked and confounded at
her part of a conversation which she began with such severe composure,
and concluded with such sincere and unaffected indignation. Now, Jack,
to be thus hated and despised."

_III.--The Death of Clarissa_

In the absence of Lovelace from London Clarissa manages to escape from
Mrs. Sinclair's, and takes refuge in the house of Mrs. Smith, who keeps
a glove shop in King Street, Covent Garden. Her health is now ruined
beyond re