for I thought it but too likely that thou
shouldst succeed in getting her back again to the accursed woman's. But
I find it would have been too late, had I finished it, and sent it away.
Yet cannot I forbear writing, to urge thee to make the only amends thou
now canst make her, by a proper use of the license thou hast obtained.

Poor, poor lady! It is a pain to me that I ever saw her. Such an adorer
of virtue to be sacrificed to the vilest of her sex; and thou their
implement in the devil's hand, for a purpose so base, so ungenerous, so
inhumane!--Pride thyself, O cruellest of men! in this reflection; and
that thy triumph over a woman, who for thy sake was abandoned of every
friend she had in the world, was effected; not by advantages taken of her
weakness and credulity; but by the blackest artifice; after a long course
of studied deceits had been tried to no purpose.

I can tell thee, it is well either for thee or for me, that I am not the
brother of the lady. Had I been her brother, her violation must have
been followed by the blood of one of us.

Excuse me, Lovelace; and let not the lady fare the worse for my concern
for her. And yet I have but one other motive to ask thy excuse; and that
is, because I owe to thy own communicative pen the knowledge I have of
thy barbarous villany, since thou mightest, if thou wouldst, have passed
it upon me for a common seduction.

CLARISSA LIVES, thou sayest. That she does is my wonder: and these words
show that thou thyself (though thou couldst, nevertheless, proceed)
hardly expectedst she would have survived the outrage. What must have
been the poor lady's distress (watchful as she had been over her honour)
when dreadful certainty took place of cruel apprehension!--And yet a man
may guess what must have been, by that which thou paintest, when she
suspected herself tricked, deserted, and betrayed, by the pretended
ladies.

That thou couldst behold her phrensy on this occasion, and her
half-speechless, half-fainting prostration at thy feet, and yet retain thy
evil purposes, will hardly be thought credible, even by those who know
thee, if they have seen her.

Poor, poor lady! With such noble qualities as would have adorned the
most exalted married life, to fall into the hands of the only man in the
world, who could have treated her as thou hast treated her!--And to let
loose the old dragon, as thou properly callest her, upon the
before-affrighted innocent, what a barba