 - When we arrived at the house, Narcissa assured me, she would exert
all her influence in protecting me from the revenge of Thicket, and likewise
engage her aunt in my favour. At the same time, pulling out her purse, offered
it as a small consideration for the service I had done her. - But I stood too
much upon the punctilios of love to incur the least suspicion of being
mercenary, and refused the present, saying, I had merited nothing by barely
doing my duty. - She seemed astonished at my disinterestedness, and blushed: I
felt the same suffusion, and with a down-cast eye and broken accent, told her, I
had one request to make, which if her generosity would grant, I should think
myself fully recompensed for an age of misery. - She changed colour at this
preamble, and with great confusion, replied, she hoped my good sense would
hinder me from asking any thing she was bound in honour to refuse, and therefore
bid me signify my desire. - Upon which I kneeled, and begged to kiss her hand.
She immediately, with an averted look, stretched it out; I imprinted on it an
ardent kiss, and bathing it with my tears, cried, »Dear Madam, I am an
unfortunate gentleman, who loves you to distraction, but would have died a
thousand deaths, rather than make this declaration under such a servile
appearance, were he not determined to yield to the rigour of his fate, to fly
from your bewitching presence, and bury his presumptuous passion in eternal
silence.« With these words I rose and went away, before she could recover her
spirits so far as to make any reply. - My first care was to go and consult Mrs.
Sagely, with whom I had maintained a friendly correspondence ever since I left
her house. When she understood my situation, the good woman, with real concern,
condoled me on my unhappy fate, and approved of my resolution to leave the
country, being perfectly well acquainted with the barbarous disposition of my
rival, »who by this time (said she) has no doubt meditated a scheme of revenge.
- Indeed, I cannot see how you will be able to elude his vengeance: being
himself in the commission, he will immediately grant warrants for apprehending
you; and as almost all the people in this country are dependant on him or his
friend, it will be impossible for you to find shelter among them: If you should
be apprehended, he will commit you to jail, where you may possibly languish in
great misery till the next
