This explanation produced such a violent effect upon her admirer,
that he was for some minutes deprived of the faculty of speech; which
he no sooner recovered, than he gave vent to the most unbridled
transports of passion. He taxed her with barbarity and indifference;
told her, that she had robbed him of his reason and internal peace;
that he would follow her to the ends of the earth, and cease to
live sooner than cease to love her; that he would sacrifice the
innocent fool who had been the occasion of all this disquiet, and
murder every man whom he considered as an obstruction to his views.
In a word, his passions, which had continued so long in a state of
the highest fermentation, together with the want of that repose which
calms and quiets the perturbation of the spirits, had wrought him
up to a pitch of real distraction. While he uttered these delirious
expressions, the tears ran down his cheeks; and he underwent such
agitation that the tender heart of the fair Fleming was affected
with his condition: and, while her own face was bedewed with
the streams of sympathy, she begged him, for Heaven's sake, to be
composed; and promised, for his satisfaction, to abate somewhat
of the rigour of her purpose.
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