I have resolved, Monkton, to go to her again! I am sure that it will be better for both of us to meet once more; perhaps, to unite for ever! None who have once loved me can easily forget me. I do not say this from vanity, because I owe it not to my being superior to, but different from, others. I am sure that the remorse and affliction she feels now are far greater than she would experience, even were she more guilty, and with me. Then, at least, she would have some one to soothe and sympathise in whatever she might endure. To one so pure as Emily, the full crime is already incurred. It is not the innocent who insist upon that nice line of morality between the thought and the action: such distinctions require reflection, experience, deliberation, prudence of head, or coldness of heart; these are the traits, not of the guileless, but of the worldly. It is the reflections, not the person, of a virtuous woman, which it is difficult to obtain: that difficulty is the safeguard to her chastity; that difficulty I have, in this instance, overcome. I have endeavoured to live without Emily, but in vain. Every moment of absence only taught me the impossibility. In twenty-four hours I shall see her again. I feel my pulse rise into fever at the very thought. Farewell, Monkton. My next letter, I hope, will record my triumph. BOOK III. EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE. Friday.--Julia is here, and so kind! She has not mentioned his name, but she sighed so deeply when she saw my pale and sunken countenance, that I threw myself into her arms and cried like a child. We had no need of other explanation: those tears spoke at once my confession and my repentance. No letter from him for several days! Surely he is not ill! how miserable that thought makes me! Saturday.--A note has just been brought me from him. He is come back-here! Good heavens! how very imprudent! I am so agitated that I can write no more. Sunday.--I have seen him! Let me repeat that sentence--I have seen him. Oh that moment! did it not atone for all that I have suffered? I dare not write everything he said, but he wished me to fly with him--him--what happiness, yet what guilt, in the very thought! Oh! this foolish heart--would that it might break! I feel too well the sophistry of his arguments, and yet I cannot resist them. He seems to have thrown a spell over me, which precludes even the effort to escape.