It is possible that Mr. L---- may taste some pleasure with you whilst his delusion lasts, whilst his imagination paints you, as mine once did, in false colours, possessed of generous virtues, and the victim of excessive sensibility: but when he sees you such as you are, he will recoil from you with aversion, he will reject you with contempt. Knowing my opinion of you, Lady Olivia, you will not choose to remain in this house; nor can I desire for my guest one whom I can no longer, in private or in public, make my companion. Adieu. Leonora L----. * * * * * LETTER LI. OLIVIA TO MR. L----. L---- Castle, Midnight. Farewell for ever!--It must be so--Farewell for ever! Would to Heaven I had summoned courage sooner to pronounce these fatal, necessary, irrevocable words: then had I parted from you without remorse, without the obloquy to which I am now exposed. Oh, my dearest L----! Mine, do I still dare to call you? Yes, mine for the last time, I must call you, mine I must fancy you, though for the impious thought the Furies themselves were to haunt me to madness. My dearest L----, never more must we meet in this world! Think not that my weak voice alone forbids it: no, a stronger voice than mine is heard--an injured wife reclaims you. What a letter have I just received...!--from.....Leonora! She tells me that she no longer desires for her guest one whom she cannot, in public or private, make her companion--Oh, Leonora, it was sufficient to banish me from your heart! She tells me not only that I have for ever forfeited her confidence; her esteem, her affection; but that I shall soon be your aversion and contempt. Oh, cruel, cruel words! But I submit--I have deserved it all--I have robbed her of a heart above all price. Leonora, why did you not reproach me more bitterly? I desire, I implore to be crushed, to be annihilated by your vengeance! Most admirable, most virtuous, most estimable of women, best of wives, I have with sacrilegious love profaned a soul consecrated to you and conjugal virtue. I acknowledge my crime; trample upon me as you will, I am humbled in the dust. More than all your bitterest reproaches, do I feel the remorse of having, for a moment, interrupted such serenity of happiness.