Write to me, Monkton--exhort me, admonish me, or forsake me for ever. I am happy yet wretched: I wander in the delirium of a fatal fever, in which I see dreams of a brighter life, but every one of them only brings me nearer to death. Day after day I have lingered here, until weeks have flown--and for what? Emily is not like the women of the world--virtue, honour, faith, are not to her the mere _convenances_ of society. “There is no crime,” said Lady A., “where there is concealment.” Such can never be the creed of Emily Mandeville. She will not disguise guilt either in the levity of the world, or in the affectations of sentiment. She will be wretched, and for ever. I hold the destinies of her future life, and yet I am base enough to hesitate whether to save or destroy her. Oh, how fearful, how selfish, how degrading, is unlawful love! You know my theoretical benevolence for everything that lives; you have often smiled at its vanity. I see now that you were right; for it seems to me almost superhuman virtue not to destroy the person who is dearest to me on earth. I remember writing to you some weeks since that I would come to London Little did I know of the weakness of my own mind. I told her that I intended to depart. She turned pale--she trembled--but she did not speak. Those signs which should have hastened my departure have taken away the strength even to think of it. I am here still! I go to E------ every day. Sometimes we sit in silence; I dare not trust myself to speak. How dangerous are such moments! _Ammutiscon lingue parlen l’alme_. Yesterday they left us alone. We had been conversing with Lady Margaret on indifferent subjects. There was a pause for some minutes. I looked up; Lady Margaret had left the room. The blood rushed into my cheek--my eyes met Emily’s; I would have given worlds to have repeated with my lips what those eyes expressed. I could not even speak--I felt choked with contending emotions. There was not a breath stirring; I heard my very heart beat. A thunderbolt would have been a relief. Oh God! if there be a curse, it is to burn, swell, madden with feelings which you are doomed to conceal! This is, indeed, to be “a cannibal of one’s own heart.” [Bacon]