To show me the necessity of my exertions, he had communicated this letter, believing that my maternal interest in your happiness would prevent me from making any but a salutary use of it. Yet he had not put your safety into my hands without a surety. He was so fully persuaded of the ill consequences of your knowing how much was known, that he had given me the proofs of your guilt only on my solemn promise to conceal them from you. I saw the generosity and force of his representations, and, while I endeavoured by the most earnest remonstrances to break your union with Colden, I suffered no particle of the truth to escape me. But you were hard as a rock. You would not forbid his visits, nor reject his letters. I need not repeat to you what followed; by what means I endeavoured to effect that end which your obstinate folly refused. When I gave this promise to Talbot, I foresaw not his speedy death and the consequences to Colden and yourself. I have been affrighted at the rumour of your marriage; and, to justify the conduct I mean to pursue, I have revealed to you what I promised to conceal merely because I foresaw not the present state of your affairs. You will not be surprised that, on your marriage with this man, I should withdraw from you what you now hold from my bounty. No faultiness in you shall induce me to leave you without the means of decent subsistence; but I owe no benevolence to Colden. My duty will not permit me to give any thing to your paramour. When you change your name you must change your habitation and leave behind you whatever you found. Think not, Jane, that I cease to love thee. I am not so inhuman as to refuse my forgiveness to a penitent; yet I ask not thy penitence to insure thee my affection. I have told thee my conditions, and adhere to them still. To preclude all bickerings and cavils, I enclose the letter which attests your fall. H. FIELDER. Letter XVII (Enclosed Letter.) _To Henry Colden_ Tuesday Morning. You went away this morning before I was awake. I think you might have stayed to breakfast; yet, on second thoughts, your early departure was best. _Perhaps_ it was so. You have made me very thoughtful to-day. What passed last night has left my mind at no liberty to read and to scribble as I used to do. How your omens made me shudder! I want to see you. Can't you come again this evening? but no; you must not. I must not be an encroacher. I must judge of others, and of their claims upon your company, by myself and my own claims. Yet I should be glad to see that creature who would dare to enter into competition with _me_. But I may as well hold my peace. My rights will not be admitted by others. Indeed, no soul but yourself can know them in all their extent, and, what is all I care for, _you_ are far from being strictly just to me!