was in despair at not being more beautiful and more worthy of you. I used to murmur against my modest rank,[36] and I often thought that the attachment you appeared to cherish for me would be hurtful to you in some way. Methought I did not love you enough. I feared the anger of my parents against you, and I was, in a word, in as lamentable a state then as now. If you had shown me any signs of affection since you left Portugal I should have made every effort to leave it, and I would have disguised myself to go and find you. Ah, what would have became of me if you had troubled no more about me after I had arrived in France?--what confusion, what a false step, what depths of shame for my family which is so dear to me since I have ceased to love you! I quite understand, you see, that I might have been even more wretched than I am. At least for once in my life I am speaking reasonably to you. How delighted you will doubtless be at my moderation, and how pleased with me? But I wish not to know it. I have already prayed you not to write to me again, and I repeat it now. Have you never reflected on the way in which you have treated me? Have you never considered that you owe me more than any one else in the world? I have loved you as a mad woman might. How I despised everything else! Besides, you have not acted like an honourable man. You must have had a natural aversion for me, since you have not loved me to distraction. I allowed myself to be enchanted by very mediocre qualities. What have you ever done to please me? What sacrifice have you made for me? Did you not always seek a thousand other pleasures? Did you ever give up gaming or the chase? Were you not ever the first to leave for the army, and did you not always come back the last? You exposed yourself rashly, although I had begged you to spare yourself for my sake. You never sought the means of settling down in Portugal, where you were esteemed. A single letter from your brother made you leave without a moment’s hesitation. Do I not know that during the voyage you were in the best of humours? It must be confessed that I ought to hate you with a deadly hatred. Ah, I have brought down all these misfortunes on myself. I accustomed you from the first to a boundless love, and that with too much ingenuousness, while one needs to employ artifice to make one’s self loved. One should seek the means of skilfully exciting it, for love of itself does not engender love. You wished me to love you, and since you had formed this design there is nothing that you would not have done to accomplish it. You would even have made up your mind to love me had that been necessary, but you knew that you could succeed in your enterprise without passion, and that you had no need of it. What treachery! did you think that you could deceive me with impunity? If any chance brings you again to this country, I declare that I will hand you over to the vengeance of my kinsfolk. I have lived