Yet now I feel it forcibly; for I hesitate to declare the rest; I, who knew no concealment, have by one deviation from my sincerity even become cowardly and irresolute in friendship. I fear your censures, Caroline; and dare think of eluding them, because too conscious that I cannot refute them.--I persevere in secresy, in deception! Mr. Valmont is still unacquainted with our marriage. For myself, I had not done this--for myself, I could not perceive its value or necessity. I yielded to the ardent remonstrances of Clement; and promised to conceal our union, till his independence should have placed him beyond the mischief of my uncle's resentment. Ah! let me turn, to seek solace, in the end, for the means! Be the means what they may, the end is effected. My Clement is restored. The energies of his mind are renovated. You will see him, Caroline: but you will see no feebleness in his character. You will find his love could never be _a trifling effervescence_; you will discover that we mutually love, from the _intimate knowledge of increasing virtues_; and no fabled or real oblivion can shed its influence on a love so elevated, so entire, so utterly beyond the reach of annihilation. I conjure you, my friend, by your own words, to watch over my Clement--to preserve him free from taint; and to restore him, just such as he so lately quitted the arms of his, and your. LETTER V FROM ARTHUR MURDEN TO CAROLINE ASHBURN MADAM That I most ardently desire to possess your esteem is, whether you believe it or not, a fact I avow with all possible sincerity. Nor is it less a fact, that I quitted Bath so abruptly to avoid giving you my confidence: the only thing in the world by which I could be entitled to ask your esteem. 'Why do I then write to you?'--you are about to demand--Ah! madam: I have by me a long catalogue of such unanswered questions--Why do I do this?--and why do I do that? insolently treads on the heel of my almost every action. Can you find a name more despicable than folly for the will that acts in opposition to acknowledged reason? If you can--apply that worst of names to me--to my incomprehensible conduct. Oh, Miss Ashburn, almost without a motive have I pursued a dream, a phantasy! The offspring of my heated imagination.--Fancy lent her utmost delusions, and dressed the vision in such glowing charms that neither prudence, honour, friendship, nor aught else could stay me in my course--not even the heavenly-- Whither am I running!--I would give a world that I could tell you--When! where! why! I dreamt and was awakened--not for a world's wealth though would I tell you. 'Tis past! 'tis done! the mischief is irretrievable.--The phantom remains; but the gilded hope that illumined her path is gone--despair casts its length of shade around me; and sunshine is no more.