ties
stimulated him to a degree little short of madness. At the same time his
habits, which were pensive and gloomy, led him to meditate a variety of
schemes to punish her obstinacy. He began to suspect that there was
little hope of succeeding by open force, and therefore determined to
have recourse to treachery.

He found in Grimes an instrument sufficiently adapted to his purpose.
This fellow, without an atom of intentional malice, was fitted, by the
mere coarseness of his perceptions, for the perpetration of the greatest
injuries. He regarded both injury and advantage merely as they related
to the gratifications of appetite; and considered it an essential in
true wisdom, to treat with insult the effeminacy of those who suffer
themselves to be tormented with ideal misfortunes. He believed that no
happier destiny could befal a young woman than to be his wife; and he
conceived that that termination would amply compensate for any
calamities she might suppose herself to undergo in the interval. He was
therefore easily prevailed upon, by certain temptations which Mr. Tyrrel
knew how to employ, to take part in the plot into which Miss Melville
was meant to be betrayed.

Matters being thus prepared, Mr. Tyrrel proceeded, through the means of
the gaoler (for the experience he already had of personal discussion did
not incline him to repeat his visits), to play upon the fears of his
prisoner. This woman, sometimes under the pretence of friendship, and
sometimes with open malice, informed Emily, from time to time, of the
preparations that were making for her marriage. One day, "the squire had
rode over to look at a neat little farm which was destined for the
habitation of the new-married couple;" and at another, "a quantity of
live stock and household furniture was procured, that every thing might
be ready for their reception." She then told her "of a licence that was
bought, a parson in readiness, and a day fixed for the nuptials." When
Emily endeavoured, though with increased misgivings, to ridicule these
proceedings as absolutely nugatory without her consent, her artful
gouvernante related several stories of forced marriages, and assured her
that neither protestations, nor silence, nor fainting, would be of any
avail, either to suspend the ceremony, or to set it aside when
performed.

The situation of Miss Melville was in an eminent degree pitiable. She
had no intercourse but with her persecutors. She had not a human bein