***

Going home, as I did, with resolutions favourable to her, judge thou of my distraction, when her escape was first hinted to me, although but in broken sentences.  I knew not what I said, nor what I did.  I wanted to kill somebody.  I flew out of one room into another, who broke the matter to me.  I charged bribery and corruption, in my first fury, upon all; and threatened destruction to old and young, as they should come in my way.

Dorcas continues locked up from me:  Sally and Polly have not yet dared to appear:  the vile Sinclair—­

But here comes the odious devil.  She taps at the door, thought that’s only a-jar, whining and snuffling, to try, I suppose, to coax me into temper.

***

What a helpless state, where a man can only execrate himself and others; the occasion of his rage remaining; the evil increasing upon reflection; time itself conspiring to deepen it!—­O how I curs’d her!

I have her now, methinks, before me, blubbering—­how odious does sorrow make an ugly face!—­Thine, Jack, and this old beldam’s, in penitentials, instead of moving compassion, must evermore confirm hatred; while beauty in tears, is beauty heightened, and what my heart has ever delighted to see.——­

’What excuse!—­Confound you, and your cursed daughters, what excuse can you make?—­Is she not gone—­Has she not escaped?—­But before I am quite distracted, before I commit half a hundred murders, let me hear how it was.’——­

***

I have heard her story!—­Art, damn’d, confounded, wicked, unpardonable art, is a woman of her character—­But show me a woman, and I’ll show thee a plotter!—­This plaguy sex is art itself:  every individual of it is a plotter by nature.

This is the substance of the old wretch’s account.

She told me, ’That I had no sooner left the vile house, than Dorcas acquainted the syren’ [Do, Jack, let me call her names!—­I beseech thee, Jack, to permit me to call her names!] ’that Dorcas acquainted her lady with it; and that I had left word, that I was gone to doctors-commons, and should be heard of for some hours at the Horn there, if inquired after by the counsellor, or anybody else:  that afterwards I should be either at the Cocoa-tree, or King’s-Arms, and should not return till late.  She then urged her to take some refreshment.

’She was in tears when Dorcas approached her; her saucy eyes swelled with weeping:  she refused either to eat or drink; sighed as if her heart would break.’—­False, devilish grief! not the humble, silent, grief, that only deserves pity!—­Contriving to ruin me, to despoil me of all that I held valuable, in the very midst of it.

’Nevertheless, being resolved not to see me for a week at least, she ordered her to bring up three or four French rolls, with a little butter, and a decanter of water; telling her, she would dispense with her attendance; and that should be all she should live upon in the interim.  So artful creature! pretending to lay up for a week’s siege.’—­For, as to substantial food, she, no more than other angels—­Angels! said I—­the devil take me if she be any more an angel!—­for she is odious in my eyes; and I hate her mortally!