Dave Larsen here, with a lot of catching up to do. Right now I'm interested in one thing only, and it's the manuscript Adeline is holding. So let's get there quickly. It's a weird night at the abbey. The Marquis takes his leave at the oddest hour, visibly agitated, and for the most implausible stated reason. Back the next day after dinner, no sooner does he beg Adeline for a private interview than Madame and Monsieur La Motte both quit the room. What follows is left murky, in part for reasons that go back to Burke: "To make anything very terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary. When we know the full extent of any danger, when we accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes." All we are told of the Marquis's proposal is that it is indecent, but we are quick to imagine that it involves some form of concubinage. "[Adeline] attempted to go, but the Marquis prevented her, and, after some hesitation, again urged his suit, though in terms that would no longer allow her to misunderstand him. Tears swelled into her eyes, but she endeavoured to check them, and with a look, in which grief and indignation seemed to struggle for pre-eminence, she said, 'My lord, this is unworthy of reply, let me pass.' " Momentarily stunned by her chastity, the Marquis falls at her feet to implore forgiveness but she's out of there. Appeals to Mme. and M. La Motte confirm the worst: "[O]ur present circumstances oblige us to preserve terms with the Marquis, and you will, therefore, suffer as little resentment to appear in your manner towards him as possible." Nor does Monsieur shrink from exploiting the threat of Adeline's own father against her: " 'What protection I can afford is yours,' said La Motte, 'but you know how destitute I am both of the right and the means of resisting him, and also how much I require protection myself.... Chiefly I must endeavour to preserve the favour of the Marquis. He may do much, should your father ever pursue desperate measures...." But it's not until her tearful offer to give up his protection against her father that the ugliest reach of La Motte's villainy is exposed: "No, Adeline, though you are ready to sacrifice yourself to my safety, I will not suffer you to do so. I will not yield you to your father, but upon compulsion. Be satisfied, therefore, upon this point. The only return I ask, is a civil deportment toward the Marquis." Now I know I'm not the only one of Alli's readers who severely doubts that Adeline's father is the real threat here.

And then wouldn't you know it. We finally get to the chapter where Adeline opens the manuscript -when --- it starts off with these lines from "The Suicide":
Full many a melancholy night
He watched the slow return of light,
And sought the powers of sleep
To spread a momentary calm
O'er his sad couch, and in the balm
Of bland oblivion's dews his burning eyes to steep.

Sorry, reading public, the manuscript is back on hold. Because ¡¡¡COMING SOON ON THE INGREDIENT!!!! The life and work of Thomas Warton (1728-1790), author of "The Suicide."