"I beseech you not to take a
step so miserable and so fatal. I know her but too well, even if you
jeer at me for saying it; little as I've seen her I know her, I know
her. I know what she'll do--I see it as I stand here. Since you're
afraid of her it's the mercy of heaven. Don't, for God's sake, be afraid
to show it, to profit by it and to arrive at the very safety that it
gives you. I'M not afraid of her, I assure you; you must already have
seen for yourself that there's nothing I'm afraid of now. Let me go to
her--I'LL settle her and I'll take that woman back without a hair of
her touched. Let me put in the two or three days--let me wind up the
connexion. You stay here with Maisie, with the carriage and the larks
and the luxury; then I'll return to you and we'll go off together--we'll
live together without a cloud. Take me, take me," she went on and
on--the tide of her eloquence was high. "Here I am; I know what I am
and what I ain't; but I say boldly to the face of you both that I'll do
better for you, far, than ever she'll even try to. I say it to yours,
Sir Claude, even though I owe you the very dress on my back and the very
shoes on my feet. I owe you everything--that's just the reason; and to
pay it back, in profusion, what can that be but what I want? Here I am,
here I am!"--she spread herself into an exhibition that, combined with
her intensity and her decorations, appeared to suggest her for strange
offices and devotions, for ridiculous replacements and substitutions.
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