I affected not to understand the last words, and was endeavouring to comfort him with some hopes, which I could see his heart rejected, when Hans returned with the good news of your health. In the joy he felt at this, he cried out, My Eloisa lives,----let her live, and if possible be happy. I will never disturb her repose, I will only bid her adieu----and, if it must be so, will leave her for ever. You surely know, said I, that you are not permitted to see her. You have already bidden farewell, and are parted. Consider, therefore, you will be more at ease when you are at a greater distance, and will have at least the consolation to think you have secured, by your departure, the peace and reputation of her you love. Fly then this hour, this moment; nor let so great a sacrifice be made too slow. Haste, lest even your delay should cause the ruin of her to whose security you have devoted yourself. What! said he in a kind of fury, shall I depart without seeing her? Not see her again! We will both perish if it must be so. I know she will not think much to die with me. But I will see her, whatever may be the consequence; I will lay both my heart and life at her feet before I am thus torn from myself.----It was not difficult for me to shew the absurdity and cruelty of such a project. But the exclamation of, _Shall I see her no more!_ repeated in the most doleful accents, seemed to demand of me some consolation. Why, said I to him, do you make your misfortunes worse than they really are? Why do you give up hopes which Eloisa herself entertains? Can you believe she would think of thus parting with you, if she conceived you were not to meet again? No, my friend, you ought to know the heart of Eloisa better. You ought to know how much she prefers her love to her life. I fear, alas! too much I fear (this I confess I have added) she will soon prefer it to every thing. Believe me, Eloisa lives in hopes, since she consents to live: believe me the cautions which her prudence dictates, regard yourself more than you are aware of; and that she is more careful of herself on your account than her own. I then took out your last letter; and, shewing him what were the hopes of a fond deluded girl, animated his, by the gentle warmth of her tender expressions. These few lines seemed to distil a salutary balsam into his envenomed heart. His looks softened, the tears rose into his eyes, and I had the satisfaction of seeing a sorrowful tenderness succeed by degrees to his former despair; but your last words, so moving, so heart-felt, _we shall not live long asunder_, made him burst into a flood of tears. No, Eloisa, my dear Eloisa! said he, raising his voice and kissing the letter, no, we shall not live long asunder. Heaven will either join our hands in this world, or unite our hearts in those eternal mansions where there is no more separation. He was now in the temper of mind, I wished to have him; his former, sullen sorrow gave me much uneasiness.