20
THE FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES OF MOLL FLANDERS
thought it the more unkind; but that if he must say no more of it to me, he added, with an unusual coldness, that he did not know anything else we had to talk of; and so he rose up to take his leave. I rose up too, as if with the same indifference; but when he came to give me as it were a parting kiss, I burst out into such a passion of crying that, though I would have spoke, I could not, and, only pressing his hand, seemed to give him the adieu, but cried vehemently.
He was sensibly moved with this; so he sat down again, and said a great many kind things to me, but still urged the necessity of what he had proposed; all the while insisting, that, if I did refuse, he would notwithstanding provide for me; but letting me plainly see that he would decline me in the main point—nay, even as a mistress; making it a point of honour not to lie with the woman that, for aught he knew, might one time or other come to be his brother's wife.
The bare loss of him as a gallant was not so much my affliction as the loss of his person, whom indeed I loved to distraction; and the loss of all the expectations I had, and which I always built my hopes upon, of having him one day for my husband. These things oppressed my mind so much, that, in short, the agonies of my mind threw me into a high fever, and long it was, that none in the family expected my life.
I was reduced very low indeed, and was often delirious; but nothing lay so near me, as the fear that when I was light-headed, I should say something or other to his prejudice. I was distressed in my mind also to see him, and so he was to see me, for he really loved me most passionately; but it could not be; there was not the least room to desire it on one side or other.
It was near five weeks that I kept my bed; and, though the violence of my fever abated in three weeks, yet it several times returned; and the physicians said two or three times, they could do no more for me, but that they must leave nature and the distemper to fight it out. After the end of five weeks I grew better, but was so weak, so altered, and recovered so slowly, that the physicians apprehended I should go into a consumption; and, which vexed me most, they gave their opinion that my mind was oppressed, that something troubled me, and, in short, that I was in love. Upon this, the whole house set upon me to press me to tell whether I was in love or not, and with whom; but as I well might, I denied my being in love at all.
They had on this occasion a squabble one day about me at table that had like to put the whole family in an uproar. They happened to be all at table but the father; as for me, I was ill, and in my chamber. At the beginning of the talk, the old gentlewoman, who had sent me somewhat to eat, bid her maid go up and ask me if I would have any more; but the maid brought down word I had not eaten half what she had sent me already. 'Alas', says the old lady, 'that poor girl! I am afraid she will never be well.' 'Well!' says the elder brother; 'how should Mrs Betty be well? They say she is in love.' 'I believe nothing of it' says the old gentlewoman, 'I don't know', says the elder sister, 'what to say to it; they have made such a rout about her being so handsome, and so charming, and I know not what, and that in her hearing too; that has turned the creature's head, I believe, and who knows what possessions may follow such doings? For my part, I don't know what to make of it.'
'Why, sister, you must acknowledge she is very handsome', says the
