But, why should I harrow up your susceptible mind, by dwelling on these cruel scenes? _Ah! suffer me to spread a veil over this fearful catastrophe!_ Some time elapsed ere I had fortitude to examine the paper addressed to me by my unfortunate husband. Its contents, which were as follows, affected me with deep and mingled emotions. TO MRS MONTAGUE. 'Amidst the reflections which press, by turns, upon my burning brain, an obscure consciousness of the prejudices upon which my character has been formed, is not the least torturing--because I feel the _inveterate force of habit_--I feel, that my convictions come too late! 'I have destroyed myself, and you, dearest, most generous, and most unfortunate, of women! I am a monster!--I have seduced innocence, and embrued my hands in blood!--Oh, God!--Oh, God!--_'Tis there distraction lies!_--I would, circumstantially, retrace my errors; but my disordered mind, and quivering hand, refuse the cruel task--yet, it is necessary that I should attempt a brief sketch. 'After the cruel accident, which destroyed our tranquillity, I nourished my senseless jealousies (the sources of which I need not, now, recapitulate), till I persuaded myself--injurious wretch that I was!--that I had been perfidiously and ungenerously treated. Stung by false pride, I tried to harden my heart, and foolishly thirsted for revenge. Your meekness, and magnanimity, disappointed me.--I would willingly have seen you, not only suffer the PANGS, but express the _rage_, of a slighted wife. The simple victim of my baseness, by the artless affection she expressed for me, gained an ascendency over my mind; and, when you removed her from your house, we still contrived, at times, to meet. The consequences of our intercourse could not long be concealed. It was, then, that I first began to open my eyes on my conduct, and to be seized with remorse!--Rachel, now, wept incessantly. Her father, she told me, was a stern and severe man; and should he hear of her misconduct, would, she was certain, be her destruction. I procured for her an obscure retreat, to which I removed the unhappy girl [Oh, how degrading is vice!], under false pretences. I exhorted her to conceal her situation--to pretend, that her health was in a declining state--and I visited her, from time to time, as in my profession.