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