want with all my raptures, which must have been very troublesome to you? You well knew that you would not stay in Portugal for ever. Then why did you single me out to make me so unhappy? Doubtless you might, in this country, have found some woman more beautiful than I am, one with whom you could have enjoyed as much pleasure,--since in this you only sought the grosser kind--one who would have loved you faithfully as long as you were with her, whom time would have consoled for your absence, and whom you might have left without either treachery or cruelty. You act more like a tyrant bent on persecution than a lover whose only thought should be how to please. Alas! why do you treat so harshly a heart which is yours? I can see very well that you let yourself be turned against me as easily as I let myself be convinced in your favour. Without needing to call on all my love, and without imagining that I had done anything out of the way, I should have resisted much stronger arguments than those can be which have moved you to leave me. They would have seemed to me very weak, and none could have been strong enough to tear me from your side. But you were ready to make use of the first pretexts that you found in order to get back to France. A vessel was sailing. Why did you not let it sail? Your family had written to you. Surely you know all the persecutions which I have suffered from mine? Your honour obliged you to abandon me. Did I take any care of mine? You were forced to go and serve your king. If all they say of him is true he has no need of your help, and would have excused you. I should have been only too happy if we could have passed our whole lives together, but since it was fated that a cruel absence should separate us, I think I ought to be glad indeed at the thought of not having been faithless, and I would not wish to have committed such a base act for anything in the world. What! you who have known the depths of my heart and affection, could you make up your mind to leave me for ever and expose me to the dread of feeling that you only remember me in order to sacrifice me to some new passion?