'Thus far I have intruded, yet know not how to end. My only hope that you will take no offence at what I have written is in the conscious respect that my heart feels for you; which I think cannot have misguided my pen; and the knowledge that you are too just lightly to attribute mean or ill motives to me. 'How languid is all that I have written! Am I so impotent that I can present none of the images that so eternally haunt me, that wing me into your presence, furnish me with innumerable arguments which seem so all-persuasive, melt me in tenderness at one moment, supply me with the most irresistible elocution the next, and convince you while they inspire me with raptures inexpressible? Are they all flown, all faded, all extinct? Where is the fervor that devours me? 'I would pray for your happiness! I would supplicate heaven that no moment of your bliss should be abridged! Shall it then be disturbed by me? Oh no. Unless authorised by hopes, as different as they are wild and improbable, pardon but this, and you shall never more be subject to the like importunity from HUGH TREVOR.' * * * * * Having written my letter, I had to devise the means of having it delivered. If it were addressed directly to her, what certainty had I that it would not be opened by the aunt? Nay was not that indeed the most probable? And would it in that case ever be seen by Olivia? In my apprehension certainly not. I had then to chuse whether I would send a messenger, who should wait about the house and take some opportunity to deliver it clandestinely; or commit it to the care either of Mary or Miss Wilmot. The messenger was a very objectionable expedient: it was mean, and liable to detection. The medium of Mary was something of the same kind; and the friendship and intelligence of Miss Wilmot rendered her intervention much the most desirable. It was a delicate office to require of her. But she could speak the truth: she could say that it was to relate some facts which Olivia might even desire to know, that it contained nothing which I myself should wish her to conceal, if she thought fit to shew it; that it did not invite her to any improper correspondence; and that it was the only one which, under the present circumstances, I meant to obtrude upon her. That Miss Wilmot might be convinced I had neither deceived myself nor her in this account, which I should instruct her to give of it, I hastened with it to her lodgings, and requested her to read it before it was sealed. Having ended, she was so well satisfied with the propriety both of writing and delivering it that she readily undertook the latter office; and, with her I left it, hoping that Olivia would soon call, would read it in her presence, and that I should quickly learn what might be the sensations it should produce. CHAPTER XIV