Thank you, Fairfax, for your speed and precautions, which I must request you not to slacken. Do not let the lad escape you: his appearance here would be ruin. Let but my grand scheme be completed, and then I care not though the legions of hell were to rise, and mow and run a tilt at me. I would face their whole fury. The scene would delight me. Let them come all! I burn to turn upon and rend them! The more desperate the more grateful. I told you, Fairfax, she hated me! I have it now from her own mouth! She feels I am become her foe! My hand is already upon her! My deepest darkest thoughts of vengeance do not exceed her imagination. And yet she fears me not! He; words, her looks, her gestures are all cool, firm defiance! She is a miracle, Fairfax! A miracle! But I will overmatch her. A heroine! She would have unhorsed Orlando himself had she lived in the times of the knights Paladin. I am an insufferable booby, an eternal lunatic, for having first thought of quarrelling with her. But it is too late! I might have foreseen the advantages I give a woman like her. She openly, magnanimously tells me what my intents are, and then spurns at them. She keeps her anger under indeed, but does not repress its energy; a proof of the subjection in which she holds her passions. She once endeavoured to teach me this art, would I but have listened. But that is past! I could not have thought it was in woman! The poor, wailing, watery-eyed beings I had before encountered would not suffer me to suppose a female could possess the high courage of the daring, noble mind. Never but one short moment did I overtop her: nor are there any means but those I then used. Inspire her with the dread of offending what she thinks principle, and she becomes a coward! But I will rouse! I will soar above her, will subdue her, will have her prostrate in humble submission, or perish! In the presence of witnesses I feel I cannot succeed; but singly, face to face, passion to passion, and being to being, distinct and eminent as she stands above all woman-kind, I will yet prove to her she is not the equal of the man Clifton. She herself has even thrown the gauntlet. I have had such a scene with her! A public exhibition! I cannot relate the manner of it. I dare not trust my brain with the full reminiscence. Why did I quarrel with her? She meant me well--Tortures!--I am a lunatic to tease myself with such recollections. This is a damned, wrong headed, ignorant, blundering, vile world; and I cannot see my way in it. I should have had no suspicion that it is all this but for her. That Henley shall never have her! I'll murder him first! Though the bottomless pit were to gape and swallow me, he shall not have her! The contemptible buzzard, Sir Arthur, is now completely veered about. But in vain! It shall not be! By hell it shall not!