It was only
rain, beginning to fall fast, in heavy drops.
'Shall I ride up to the house a few minutes hence, innocently
supposing that its master is at home and will be charmed to receive
me?'
'No!'
'Your cruel commands are implicitly to be obeyed; though I am the
most unfortunate fellow in the world, I believe, to have been
insensible to all other women, and to have fallen prostrate at last
under the foot of the most beautiful, and the most engaging, and
the most imperious. My dearest Louisa, I cannot go myself, or let
you go, in this hard abuse of your power.'
Mrs. Sparsit saw him detain her with his encircling arm, and heard
him then and there, within her (Mrs. Sparsit's) greedy hearing,
tell her how he loved her, and how she was the stake for which he
ardently desired to play away all that he had in life. The objects
he had lately pursued, turned worthless beside her; such success as
was almost in his grasp, he flung away from him like the dirt it
was, compared with her. Its pursuit, nevertheless, if it kept him
near her, or its renunciation if it took him from her, or flight if
she shared it, or secrecy if she commanded it, or any fate, or
every fate, all was alike to him, so that she was true to him, -
the man who had seen how cast away she was, whom she had inspired
at their first meeting with an admiration, an interest, of which he
had thought himself incapable, whom she had received into her
confidence, who was devoted to her and adored her.
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