'I have left home to avoid expostulations, nor shall I return to it till I hear you have removed yourself. Spare the attempt of a justification, which can only aggravate the resentment of your already too-much injured husband.' I have for a while suppressed the tumult in my soul, to give you this shocking letter. O my Cecilia! What a wretched lot is thy unhappy friend's! To be neglected, forsaken, despised, by a husband that I love! Yet I could bear that: but to be suspected, accused too! to be at once the miserable object of jealousy and scorn! Surely they know nothing of the human heart, who say that jealousy cannot subsist without affection; I have a fatal proof to the contrary. Mr Arnold loves me not, yet doubts my honour. Cruel, mean, detestable suspicion! Oh that vile woman! 'tis she has done this; like a persecuting dæmon she urges on the ruin which she set on foot. What can I do? Whither can I fly? I cannot remain here any longer; my presence banishes Mr Arnold from his home. If I go to my mother under such circumstances, it will break her heart; yet she must know it. I must not wait to be turned out of my own doors. That thought is not to be borne. I will go this instant, no matter whither. _September 15_ God preserve me in my senses! I have passed two days and two nights I know not how; in silence and without food, Patty tells me. But I think I am a little recovered. I will write to my mother, and beg of her to open her arms to receive her miserable child. I am collected enough, and know what to say. I had just dispatched my letter, incoherent as it is, and blotted with my tears, when Patty brought me one that had come by the post. I knew my dear mother's hand on the superscription, and kissed it before I opened it. See, my sister, how the tenderest of parents write to her unhappy child, whom she fondly believes to be the darling of her husband, and blessed with domestic felicity. My beloved Sidney,