He has ranked me with prostitutes and thieves.

I cannot pardon thee, Pleyel, for this injustice.

Thy understanding must be hurt.

If it be not, if thy conduct was sober and deliberate, I can never forgive an outrage so unmanly, and so gross.
These thoughts gradually gave place to others.

Pleyel was possessed by some momentary phrenzy: appearances had led him into palpable errors.
Whence could his sagacity have contracted this blindness?
Was it not love?
Previously assured of my affection for Carwin, distracted with grief and jealousy, and impelled hither at that late hour by some unknown instigation, his imagination transformed shadows into monsters, and plunged him into these deplorable errors.
This idea was not unattended with consolation.