A stranger to Love's cunning, she marvelled why he should desire to witness the scorn Rose would feel for him.
'If she's not asleep, then, she shall hear it now,' said her ladyship.
'You understand that it will be mentioned to no other person.' 'Except to Mr.Laxley, madam, to whom I shall offer the satisfaction he may require.

But I will undertake that.' 'Just as you think proper on that matter,' remarked her philosophical ladyship, who held that man was a fighting animal, and must not have his nature repressed.
She lighted him part of the way, and then turned off to Rose's chamber.
Would Rose believe it of him?
Love combated his dismal foreboding.
Strangely, too, now that he had plunged into his pitch-bath, the guilt seemed to cling to him, and instead of hoping serenely, or fearing steadily, his spirit fell in a kind of abject supplication to Rose, and blindly trusted that she would still love even if she believed him base.

In his weakness he fell so low as to pray that she might love that crawling reptile who could creep into a house and shrink from no vileness to win her..