Perhaps you wish to hear, ere you decide, what I shall suffer if you leave me. I know not: sometimes impetuous impulses arise within me, that overrule my reason: should I be to blame, then, if they rendered life insupportable? It is equally true that I have a great faculty of happiness; it interests me in everything: I converse with pleasure, and revel in the minds of others--in the friendship they show me--in all the wonders of art and nature, which affectation hath not stricken dead. But would it be in my power to live when I no longer saw you? it is for you to judge, Oswald: you know me better than I know myself. I am not responsible for what I may experience: it is he who plants the dagger should guess whether the wound is mortal; but if it were so, I should forgive you. My happiness entirely depends on the affection you have paid me for the last six months. I defy all your delicacy to blind me, were it in the least degree impaired. Banish from your mind all idea of duty. In love, I acknowledged no promises no security: God alone can raise the flower which storms have blighted. A tone, a look, will be enough to tell me that your heart is not the same; and I shall detest all you may offer me instead of love--your love, that heavenly ray, my only glory! Be free, then, Nevil! now--ever--even if my husband; for, did you cease to love, my death would free you from bonds that else would be indissoluble. When you have read this, I would see you: my impatience will bring me to your side, and I shall read my fate at a glance; for grief is a rapid poison--and the heart, though weak, never mistakes the signal of irrevocable destiny. "Adieu." [1] Her real Christian name is never divulged even to the reader.--TR. [2] This name must not be confused with that of Corilla, an Italian improvisatrice. The Grecian Corinna was famed for lyric poetry. Pindar himself received lessons from her. BOOK XV. THE ADIEU TO ROME, AND JOURNEY TO VENICE. CHAPTER I.