“I wanted to finish thus, but I have not the strength. I take up my pen again to beg you to come back to me. Without you I cannot live; I will expose myself to everything rather than lose you. See how low you bring me! I am forced to believe you guilty, however much I wish to think you innocent. Yet I write thus.” “CELLE, _July_ 25/_August_ 4. “This is the third post and still no letter! Surely so tender a lover as you always seemed to be cannot have wholly forgotten me—or are we betrayed? It positively must be one thing or the other. The suspense is so acute that I have not a moment’s peace. But my great fear is that you have changed. I think of nothing else, nor of all that may happen to me. Is it possible that you have forgotten your vows of eternal fidelity? I strive to drive away my sad thoughts, but I am in such abject melancholy that I fear it is a foreboding of misfortune. If you love me no longer I shall never be comforted. But what is the use of telling you that? You know it, and perhaps the knowledge has not prevented you from becoming unfaithful. Why do you force me by your silence to believe the worst? I have not deserved this coldness, for none ever loved so tenderly before. If I receive no letter from you by the next post I shall no longer be able to doubt. What pleasure can you find in grieving me thus? What have I done to be treated in this way? Is it because I love you to madness and am faithful to you with a faithfulness that nothing will ever equal? I have not the strength to say more, for I am writing perchance to an ungrateful being, and the thought is death. Farewell. If no letters come by the first post I shall risk sending a note by Lenner, for if there should be treachery I fear that you have received none of mine. I send you this by the postmaster here.” _Fräulein von Knesebeck to Königsmarck._