We are undone! all is discovered! your letters are gone! they were
there last night, and could have been taken away but to day. ’Tis my
mother: it can be no body else. If my father should see them, my life
is in danger. But why should he not see them, if I must renounce----
Heavens! my mother sends for me, whither shall I fly? how shall I
support her presence? O that I could hide myself in the centre of the
earth! I tremble every limb, and am unable to move one step----the
shame, the mortification, the killing reproaches----I have deserved
it, I will support it all. But oh! the grief, the tears of a weeping
mother----O, my heart, how piercing!----she waits for me; I can stay
no longer----she will know----I must tell her all----Regianino
will be dismissed. Write no more till you hear further----who knows
if ever----yet I might----what? deceive her?----deceive my
mother!----alas! if our safety lies in supporting a falsehood,
farewell, we are indeed undone!
Letter XCIV. From Mrs. Orbe.
O how you afflict all those who love you! what tears have already been
shed on your account, in an unfortunate family, whose tranquillity has
been disturbed by you alone! Fear to add to these tears by covering us
with mourning: tremble lest the death of an afflicted parent should be
the last effect of the poison you have poured into the heart of her
child, and that your extravagant passion will at length fill you with
eternal remorse. My friendship made me support your folly, while it
was capable of being nourished by the shadow of hope; but how can it
allow a vain constancy condemned by honour and reason, and which
producing nothing but pain and misfortune can only deserve the name of
obstinacy?
You know in what manner the secret of your passion, so long concealed
from the suspicions of my aunt, has been discovered by your letters.
How sensibly must such a stroke be felt by a tender and virtuous
mother, less irritated against you, than against herself! she blames
her blind negligence, she deplores her fatal delusion, her deepest
affliction arises from her having had too high an esteem for her
daughter, and her grief has filled Eloisa with a hundred times more
sorrow than all her reproaches.