'Why then,' continued he, 'should the foolish remains of the tenderness I once had for her, make me still hesitate to believe her guilty? No, no! the account before me has too much the face of truth; it is too circumstantial to be the work of mere invention. No one would forge a lie, and at the same time present the means of detecting it to be so. Here is the village specified, the nurse's name, and a particular direction how I may convince myself of the shameful truth. There is no room to doubt!' To strengthen the opinion he now had of her guilt, the words Miss Flora had said to him, returned to his remembrance--that there was a time when Miss Betsy had trusted her with her dearest secrets.--'Her dearest secrets!' cried he: 'what secrets can a virtuous young lady have, that shun the light, and require so much fidelity in the concealment of? No, no! it must be this Miss Flora meant by that emphatick expression. The other could not hide the consequence of her shameful passion from the family; Lady Mellasin and Miss Flora must know it, and perhaps many more; who, while they were witnesses of the respect I paid her, laughed at the folly of my fond credulity.' Thus at some times did he believe her no less guilty than the letter said; but, at others, sentiments of a different nature prevailed, and pleaded in her favour; her adventure with the gentleman-commoner at Oxford came into his head: 'If the too great gaiety of her temper,' said he, 'led her into danger, she then had courage and virtue to extricate herself out of it.' He also recollected several expressions she had casually let fall, testifying her disdain and abhorrence of every thing that had the least appearance of indecency: but then relapsing into his former doubts, 'Yet who,' cried he again, 'can account for accident? she might, in one unguarded moment, grant what, in another, she would blush to think of.' How terrible is the situation of a lover who endeavours all he can to reconcile his reason to his passion, yet to which side soever he bends his thoughts, finds in them things so diametrically opposite and incompatible, that either the one or the other must be totally renounced! Willing, therefore, to take the party which would best become his honour and reputation, Mr. Trueworth resolved to banish from his mind all the ideas of those amiable qualities he had admired in Miss Betsy, and remember only those which gave him occasion for disgust. But this was a task not so easy to be accomplished as he imagined; for though the irregularity of Miss Betsy's conduct was of itself sufficient to deter him from a marriage with her, yet he found he stood in need of all helps to enable him to drive that once so pleasing object entirely from his mind.