This letter was succeeded by a renewal of our intercourse and studies. Mrs Denbeigh, my kind hostess, was usually of our parties. We read together, or conversed only on general topics, or upon subjects of literature. I was introduced by Mr Harley to several respectable families, friends of his own and of his mother's. I made many indirect enquiries of our common acquaintance, with a view to discover the supposed object of my friend's attachment, but without success. All that he had, himself, said, respecting such an engagement, had been so vague, that I began to doubt of the reality of its existence.--When, in any subsequent letters (for we continued occasionally to correspond) I ventured to allude to the subject, I was warned 'not to confound my own conceptions with real existences.' When he spoke of a susceptibility to the tender affections, it was always in the past time,--'I _have_ felt,'--'I _have_ been--'Once he wrote--'His situation had been rendered difficult, by a combination of _peculiar circumstances_; circumstances, with which but few persons were acquainted.' Sometimes he would affect to reflect upon his past conduct, and warn me against appreciating him too highly. In fine, he was a perfect enigma, and every thing which he said or wrote tended to increase the mystery. A restless, an insatiable, curiosity, devoured me, heightened by feelings that every hour became more imperious, more uncontroulable. I proposed to myself, in the gratification of this curiosity, a satisfaction that should compensate for all the injuries I might suffer in the career. This inquietude prevented my mind from resting; and, by leaving room for conjecture, left room for the illusions of fancy, and of hope. Had I never expressed this, he might have affected ignorance of my sensations; he might have pleaded guiltless, when, in the agony of my soul, I accused him of having sacrificed my peace to his disingenuousness--but vain were all my expostulations! 'If,' said I, 'I have sought, too earnestly, to learn the state of your affections, it has been with a view to the more effectually disciplining of my own--of stifling every _ignis fatuus_ of false hope, that making, even, impossibilities possible, will still, at times, continue to mislead me. Objects seen through obscurity, imperfectly discerned, allow to the fancy but too free a scope; the mind grows debilitated, by brooding over its apprehensions; and those apprehensions, whether real or imaginary, are carried with accumulated pain to the heart. I have said, on this subject, you have a right to be free; but I am, now, doubtful of this right: the health of my mind being involved in the question, has rendered it a question of _utility_--and on what other basis can morals rest?'