We had now a second conference upon the subject-matter of the last
conference. He laid his business very home indeed; he protested his
affection to me, and indeed I had no room to doubt it; he declared that
it began from the first moment I talked with him, and long before I had
mentioned leaving my effects with him. ''Tis no matter when it began,'
thought I; 'if it will but hold, 'twill be well enough.' He then told
me how much the offer I had made of trusting him with my effects, and
leaving them to him, had engaged him. 'So I intended it should,'
thought I, 'but then I thought you had been a single man too.' After
we had supped, I observed he pressed me very hard to drink two or three
glasses of wine, which, however, I declined, but drank one glass or
two. He then told me he had a proposal to make to me, which I should
promise him I would not take ill if I should not grant it. I told him
I hoped he would make no dishonourable proposal to me, especially in
his own house, and that if it was such, I desired he would not propose
it, that I might not be obliged to offer any resentment to him that did
not become the respect I professed for him, and the trust I had placed
in him in coming to his house; and begged of him he would give me leave
to go away, and accordingly began to put on my gloves and prepare to be
gone, though at the same time I no more intended it than he intended to
let me.
Well, he importuned me not to talk of going; he assured me he had no
dishonourable thing in his thoughts about me, and was very far from
offering anything to me that was dishonourable, and if I thought so, he
would choose to say no more of it.
That part I did not relish at all. I told him I was ready to hear
anything that he had to say, depending that he would say nothing
unworthy of himself, or unfit for me to hear. Upon this, he told me
his proposal was this: that I would marry him, though he had not yet
obtained the divorce from the whore his wife; and to satisfy me that he
meant honourably, he would promise not to desire me to live with him,
or go to bed with him till the divorce was obtained. My heart said yes
to this offer at first word, but it was necessary to play the hypocrite
a little more with him; so I seemed to decline the motion with some
warmth, and besides a little condemning the thing as unfair, told him
that such a proposal could be of no signification, but to entangle us
both in great difficulties; for if he should not at last obtain the
divorce, yet we could not dissolve the marriage, neither could we
proceed in it; so that if he was disappointed in the divorce, I left
him to consider what a condition we should both be in.