ill never marry but him whom
she passionately loves. Her power over the heart that loves her will
scarcely have limits. The means of prying into your transactions, of
suspecting and sifting your thoughts, which her constant society with
you, while sleeping and waking, her zeal and watchfulness for your
welfare, and her curiosity, adroitness, and penetration will afford her,
are evident. Your danger, therefore, will be imminent. Your fortitude
will be obliged to have recourse, not to flight, but to vigilance. Your
eye must never close.

Alas! what human magnanimity can stand this test! How can I persuade
myself that you will not fail? I waver between hope and fear. Many, it
is true, have fallen, and dragged with them the author of their ruin,
but some have soared above even these perils and temptations, with their
fiery energies unimpaired, and great has been, as great ought to be,
their recompence.

But you are doubtless aware of your danger. I need not repeat the
consequences of betraying your trust, the rigour of those who will Judge
your fault, the unerring and unbounded scrutiny to which your actions,
the most secret and indifferent, will be subjected.

Your conduct, however, will be voluntary. At your own option be it, to
see or not to see this woman. Circumspection, deliberation forethought,
are your sacred duties and highest interest.

Chapter VIII.

Ludloe's remarks on the seductive and bewitching powers of women, on
the difficulty of keeping a secret which they wish to know, and to
gain which they employ the soft artillery of tears and prayers, and
blandishments and menaces, are familiar to all men, but they had little
weight with me, because they were unsupported by my own experience. I
had never had any intellectual or sentimental connection with the sex.
My meditations and pursuits had all led a different way, and a bias
had gradually been given to my feelings, very unfavourable to the
refinements of love. I acknowledge, with shame and regret, that I was
accustomed to regard the physical and sensual consequences of the sexual
relation as realities, and every thing intellectual, disinterested, and
heroic, which enthusiasts connect with it as idle dreams. Besides, said
I, I am yet a stranger to the secret, on the preservation of which so
much stress is laid, and it will be optional with me to receive it
or not. If, in the progress of my acquaintance with Mrs. Benington, I
should perceive any extrao