"I raved at him. I would have flung from him, yet where could I go?

"Still, he insisted upon the propriety of appearing to be married. 'But
since you dislike what I have said, let me implore you,' he added, 'to
give a sanction to it by naming an early day--would to Heaven it were
to-morrow!'

"What could I say? I verily believe, had he urged me in a proper way, I
should have consented to meet him at a more sacred place than the
parlour below.

"The widow now directs all her talk to me as 'Mrs. Lovelace,' and I,
with a very ill-grace, bear it."

"_April 28._ Mr. Lovelace has returned already. 'My dearest life,' said
he. 'I cannot leave you for so long a time as you seem to expect I
should. Spare yourself the trouble of writing to any of your friends
till we are married. When they know we are married, your brother's plots
will be at an end, and they must all be reconciled to you. Why, then,
would you banish me from you? Why will you not give the man who has
brought you into difficulties, and who so honourably wishes to extricate
you from them, the happiness of doing so?'

"But, my dear although the opportunity was so inviting, he urged not for
the _day_. Which is the _more extraordinary_, as he was so pressing for
marriage before we came to town."

After some weeks, Clarissa succeeds in escaping from Mrs. Sinclair's
house and takes lodgings at Hampstead. But Lovelace finds out her
refuge, and sends two women, who pretend to be his relatives, Lady Betty