Mr. Trueworth was in the utmost perplexity of mind on reading this distracted epistle. Of all the hours of his past life he could not recollect any one which gave him so much cause of repentance as that wherein he had commenced an amour with a woman of so violent a temper: he had never loved her; and all the liking he ever had for her being now utterly erased by a more laudable impression, the guilty pleasures he had enjoyed with her were now irksome to his remembrance; and the more she endeavoured to revive the tender folly in him, the more she grew distasteful to him. It so little becomes a woman, whose characteristick should be modesty, to use any endeavours to force desire, that those who do it are sure to convert love into indifference, and indifference into loathing and contempt: even she who, with the greatest seeming delicacy, labours to rekindle a flame once extinguished, will find the truth of what Morat says in the play-- 'To love once pass'd we cannot backward move; Call yesterday again, and we may love.' Mr. Trueworth, however, had so much pity for that unfortunate creature, that he would have given, perhaps, good part of his estate that she no longer loved him: but how to turn the tide of so extravagant a passion, he could not yet resolve; and it being near the time in which he knew they would expect him at Sir Bazil's, where he now dined every day, and the messenger who brought him the letter also growing impatient to be dispatched, he wrote in haste these few lines. 'To Miss Flora Mellasin. Madam, Business of the greatest consequence now calls upon me, and I have no time to write as I would do; but depend upon it I will send to you to-morrow morning, and either appoint a meeting, or let you know my real sentiments in a letter; till when, I beg you will make yourself more easy, if you desire to oblige him who is, with the most unfeigned good wishes, Madam, your most humble, and most obedient servant, C. TRUEWORTH. P.S. I shall take it as a favour, Madam, that you will henceforward forbear to make any enquiry concerning me at the coffee-house, or elsewhere.' Having given this to Miss Flora's porter, he hasted away to Sir Bazil's; there to compose his mind, after the embarrassments it had sustained that morning. CHAPTER IX _Contains very little to the purpose_