one. But since I find you
are so ready to cry out for help against me, which must bring down upon
me the vengeance of all your family, I am contented to run all risques.
I will not ask you to retreat with me; I will attend you into the
garden, and into the house, if I am not intercepted.

Nay, be not surprised, Madam. The help you would have called for, I will
attend you to; for I will face them all: but not as a revenger, if they
provoke me not too much. You shall see what I can further bear for your
sake--and let us both see, if expostulation, and the behaviour of a
gentleman to them, will not procure me the treatment due to a gentleman
from them.

Had he offered to draw his sword upon himself, I was prepared to have
despised him for supposing me such a poor novice, as to be intimidated
by an artifice so common. But this resolution, uttered with so serious
an air, of accompanying me in to my friends, made me gasp with terror.

What mean you, Mr. Lovelace? said I: I beseech you leave me--leave me,
Sir, I beseech you.

Excuse me, Madam! I beg you to excuse me. I have long enough skulked
like a thief about these lonely walls--long, too long, have I borne
the insults of your brother, and other of your relations. Absence but
heightens malice. I am desperate. I have but this one chance for it; for
is not the day after to-morrow Wednesday? I have encouraged virulence
by my tameness.--Yet tame I will still be. You shall see, Madam, what I
will bear for your sake. My sword shall be put sheathed into your hands
[and he offered it to me in the scabbard].--My heart, if you please,
clapping one hand upon his breast, shall afford a sheath for your
brother's sword. Life is nothing, if I lose you--be pleased, Madam, to
shew me the way into the garden [moving toward the door]. I will attend
you, though to my fate!--But too happy, be it what it will, if I receive
it in your presence. Lead on, dear creature! [putting his sword into his
belt]--You shall see what I can bear for you. And he stooped and took
up the key; and offered it to the lock; but dropped it again, without
opening the door, upon my earnest expostulations.

What can you mean, Mr. Lovelace?--said I--Would you thus expose
yourself? Would you thus expose me?--Is this your generosity? Is every
body to take advantage thus of the weakness of my temper?

And I wept. I could not help it.

He threw himself upon his knees at my feet--Who can bear, said he, [with
an ardour