"I shall return to you as soon as the sacred duty I am now engaged in is fulfilled; I shall return to you, for I wish your reputation to be preserved. The only request I make is, that you will never again attempt to act the part which you have hitherto so ably performed. I shall expect from you respect and submission, for without them, how can I save you? but one of those looks--one of those words which once made my happiness, would _now_ drive me from you for ever. Attempt no defence; offer no explanations; if you repent, mourn over the past in silence, and silently resign yourself, as I do, to the life which lies before us. Write to me, but do not answer this letter. That you may not be tempted to do so, I will go through the painful task of explaining to you the manner in which my eyes have been opened to what I might have seen long ago, had it not been for the deep hypocrisy of your life, and of your character. I said I would not upbraid you; but the simple mention of facts must become the most cutting reproach. When I look back to the last two years, and remember the many proofs I have had of your secret and powerful interest in Henry's fate, and of the tenacity with which you have clung to his society, I ask myself how you could ever have deceived me as you have done? But when I recollect what you have professed, the way in which you have acted, all that you have said to me, I almost doubt the evidence of my senses. "Vague but painful doubts had latterly shot across me; and had I believed it to be in human nature, or in woman's power, to feign such love as you seemed to feel for me, I should have _feared_ what I _now know_. From the moment when, in accidental conversation, I heard that in defiance of my advice, you had spent the day alone with Henry, to that in which I received anonymously the notes I now send you, the truth was gradually disclosed to me. I saw you change colour; I saw your lip quiver, and heard your voice tremble. I saw you in ungovernable passion upbraid the man who you fancied had betrayed you, and then, in the excess of your agitation, you fainted at my feet. When I went to your bedside, and gazed on your pale face, with the faint hope that I had been mistaken, that I had not read right your uncontrollable agitation--even then your lips opened and uttered a passionate adjuration to Henry, not to leave or forsake you, which drove me from your side with thoughts and feelings that time and prayer alone can subdue. When, on the following day, in a cover, directed by an unknown hand, I received the confirmation of what was already too sure, in the first agony of grief and indignation, I resolved to part from you for ever; and it was not till I had gone through the severest struggles with myself, that I came to my present determination. The summons I received a few hours afterwards to your uncle's death-bed, confirmed it. I would not carry to his dying ears the intelligence of your