“Glenarvon, my only hope in life, drive me not at once to desperation. Alas! why do I write thus? You are ill perhaps? or my friends surrounding you, have urged you to this? In such case, remember my situation. Say but kindly that my letters are no longer a solace to you, and I will of myself cease to write; but do not hurl me at once from adoration to contempt and hate. Do not throw me off, and doom me to sudden, to certain perdition. Glenarvon, have mercy. Let compassion, if love has ceased, impel you to show me some humanity. I know it is degrading thus to write. I ought to be silent, and to feel that if you have the heart to treat me with harshness, it is lowering myself still further thus to sue. But oh! my God, it is no longer time to think of dignity—to speak of what is right. I have fallen to the lowest depth. You, you are the first to teach me how low, how miserably I am fallen. I forsook every thing for you. I would have followed you; and you know it. But for yours and other’s sake, I would have sacrificed all—all to you. Alas! I have already done so. “If you should likewise turn against me—if you for whom so much is lost, should be the first to despise me, how can I bear up under it. Dread the violence of my feelings—the agonizing pang, the despair of a heart so lost, and so betrayed. Oh, write but one line to me. Say that another has engaged you to forsake me—that you will love me no more; but that as a friend you will still feel some affection, some interest for me. I am ill, Glenarvon. God knows I do not affect it, to touch you. Such guilt as mine, and so much bitter misery!—how can I bear up under it? Oh pity the dread, the suspense I endure. You know not what a woman feels when remorse, despair and the sudden loss of him she loves, assail her at once. “I have seen, I have heard of cruelty, and falsehood: but you, Glenarvon—oh you who are so young, so beautiful, can you be inhuman? It breaks my heart to think so. Why have you not the looks, as well as the heart of a villain? Oh why take such pains, such care, to lull me into security, to dispel every natural fear and suspicion, a heart that loves must harbour, only to plunge me deeper in agony—to destroy me with more refined and barbarous cruelty? Jest not with my sufferings. God knows they are acute and real. I feel even for myself when I consider what I am going to endure. Oh spare one victim at least. Generously save me: I ask you not to love me. Only break to me yourself this sudden change—tell me my fate, from that dear mouth which has so often sworn never, never to abandon me.” CHAPTER LXXX.