Lovel.  So I shall, and cannot help it.  I have no doubt but I shall.  And as to trying her, is she not now in the height of her trial?  Have I not reason to think that she is coming about?  Is she not now yielding up her resentment for an attempt which she thinks she ought not to forgive?  And if she do, may she not forgive the last attempt?—­Can she, in a word, resent that more than she does this?  Women often, for their own sakes, will keep the last secret; but will ostentatiously din the ears of gods and men with their clamours upon a successless offer.  It was my folly, my weakness, that I gave her not more cause for this her unsparing violence!

Capt.  O Sir, you will never be able to subdue this lady without force.

Lovel.  Well, then, puppy, must I not endeavour to find a proper time and place—­

Capt.  Forgive me, Sir! but can you think of force to such a fine creature?

Lovel.  Force, indeed, I abhor the thought of; and for what, thinkest thou, have I taken all the pains I have taken, and engaged so many persons in my cause, but to avoid the necessity of violent compulsion?  But yet, imaginest thou that I expect direct consent from such a lover of forms as this lady is known to be!  Let me tell thee, M’Donald, that thy master, Belford, has urged on thy side of the question all that thou canst urge.  Must I have every sorry fellow’s conscience to pacify, as well as my own?—­By my soul, Patrick, she has a friend here, [clapping my hand on my breast,] that pleads for her with greater and more irresistible eloquence than all the men in the world can plead for her.  And had she not escaped me—­And yet how have I answered my first design of trying her,* and in her the virtue of the most virtuous of the sex?—­ Perseverance, man!—­Perseverance!—­What! wouldst thou have me decline a trial that they make for the honour of a sex we all so dearly love?

* See Vol.  III.  Letter XVIII.

Then, Sir, you have no thoughts—­no thoughts—­[looking still more sorrowfully,] of marrying this wonderful lady?

Yes, yes, Patrick, but I have.  But let me, first, to gratify my pride, bring down her’s.  Let me see, that she loves me well enough to forgive me for my own sake.  Has she not heretofore lamented that she staid not in her father’s house, though the consequence must have been, if she had, that she would have been the wife of the odious Solmes?  If now she be brought to consent to be mine, seest thou not that the reconciliation with her detested relations is the inducement, as it always was, and not love of me?—­Neither her virtue nor her love can be established but upon full trial; the last trial—­but if her resistance and resentment be such as hitherto I have reason to expect they will be, and if I find in that resentment less of hatred of me than of the fact, then shall she be mine in her own way.  Then, hateful as is the life of shackles to me, will I marry her.