FIFTH LETTER Estou pôsto sem medo A tudo o que o fatal destino ordene: Póde ser que cansado, Ou seja tarde, ou cedo, Com pena de penar-me, me despene. CAMÕES, _Canção_ ix. I am writing to you for the last time, and I hope to let you see by the difference in the terms and manner of this letter that you have at last persuaded me that you no longer love me, and that therefore I ought no longer to love you. I will send you on the first opportunity all that I still have of yours. Do not be afraid that I shall write to you; I will not even put your name on the packet. With all these details I have charged Dona Brites,[35] whom I have accustomed to confidences very different from this. Her care will be less suspected than mine. She will take all the necessary precautions, that I may be assured that you have received the portrait and bracelets which you gave me. I wish you to know, however, that for some days I have felt as if I could burn and tear up these tokens of your love, once so dear to me. But I have revealed such weakness to your eyes that you would perhaps never have believed me capable of going to a like extremity. I wish, however, to enjoy all the pain I have experienced in separating from them, and cause you some vexation at least. I confess, to your shame and mine, that I found myself more attached to these trifles than I should like to tell you, and I felt that I had again need of all my reasoning powers to enable me to get rid of each object in spite of my flattering myself that I cared no more for you. But, provided with such good reasons as mine, one always achieves the end one seeks. I have placed them in the hands of Dona Brites. What tears this resolution cost me! After a thousand different emotions and doubts which you know not of, and of which I shall certainly not give you an account, I have conjured her to speak no more to me of these baubles, and never to give them back to me even though I should beg to see them once again, and, in a word, to send them you without letting me know.